


All Magic Flows

by hypata



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alchemist Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Neville Longbottom, Auror Partners, Case Fic, Divorce, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them Spoilers, Good Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter Raises Teddy Lupin, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Spoilers, Master of Death Harry Potter, Multi, Powerful Harry, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Slow Burn, Wandless Magic (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypata/pseuds/hypata
Summary: Harry Potter, rising Auror extraordinaire, is called to Malfoy Manor to consult on a strange bit of magic found on the grounds of the Malfoy Estate.He later wonders if the journey was worth the destination.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter
Comments: 43
Kudos: 49





	1. The Minister’s Message

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a quick note as I did not want to fill the tags list with a slew of nonsense tags. This story will contain het and slash, and it will also delve into some popular explorations of wizarding culture that is fandom based. Harry's magic in this story is evolving into something that no one quite understands, and I wanted to create a paralleling aspect that I feel is missing in canon. 
> 
> That beings said, there maybe some triggering depictions in this story over Harry's neglectful/abusive upbringing, PTSD from the war, and disordered eating. On chapters where I feel there could be some triggering depictions, I will warn in the beginning notes. 
> 
> This story begins in how I perceive Harry's journey post Deathly Hallows, just a few years after the end of the war. While you do not have to have any knowledge of background of the Cursed Child or Fantastic Beasts, I do use characters and events from the storyline to help my own.

All was not well. 

Auror Chief Inspector Harry Potter realized that the moment he touched the purple interdepartmental memo. His magic swirled around his fingertips as he turned it over to look at the sender. The gold seal of the now no-longer interim Minister of Magic flashed on one of the wings of the paper aeroplane as it unfolded into his hand. Harry put his unsolved casefile aside and began to read the letter from the Head Office of Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

In the four years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter, now more than a year off his two year training and year long probation period, was coming into his own as an employee of the Ministry of Magic, fast tracking himself up the line in Gawain Robards’ Auror Office. Ron, who had been Harry’s Auror partner through training, left the program the moment that he was sworn as a full officer to join George as a proprietor at Weasley’ Wizard Wheezes. Harry, Neville, and Ron had done a lot to clean up the program, but now, it was Neville and Harry manning the future and security of the Auror’s Office. Robard’s both hated and loved Harry, and there were already rumors of Harry’s ascension to Head Auror by the end of the decade, which was probably why Robards disliked Harry. 

Surrounded by many of his friends inside the Ministry of Magic, Harry and some of the former students of the 1998 Hogwarts class were finally moving into the first steps of what could be considered a normal adulthood. Now, there were more wedding invitations than notices of a funeral, and Harry’s eyes always misted a little when he received the announcement of a friend’s newest additions to their families. Life had slowly begun to move on and heal.

That healing aside, there was still worry in the Ministry of Magic. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement still anticipated some backlash from those that supported Voldemort, whether openly or not. There had been minor altercations, and a year ago, Harry had even been briefly kidnapped before extracting himself. Harry had created a niche space for him to explore in his knowledge of Defense of Dark Arts, and he finally created a spell portfolio that did not start with either a Disarming Charm or an Impediment Jinx.

It did not aid the DMLE that the Dark Marks that Death Eaters once carried had all but shriveled away, looking more like a pale, puckered scar than a red or pitch-black skull and snake, and those horrible Snatchers were never marked at all, instead reporting back to their Death Eater handlers. Harry had been horrified to realize that at least Death Eaters had some unspoken moral standard that the Snatchers had not. Statements were still being filed, and trials were still used to ascertain Voldemort-leaning ties. Harry’s newest position, pushing through the backlog of unsolved crimes in the Homicide and Serious Crimes Command, was quietly busy helping build cases for the Wizengamot to prosecute in court. 

Harry looked back at the note and read it again. Merlin, this was not his day.

> _Harry,_
> 
> _Report to Malfoy Manor immediately. Solo report. Possible consultant work. Needs expert eye. See me at 11 tomorrow morning for debriefing. I’ll handle Gawain if issues emerge. Have no issues emerge._
> 
> _Kingsley_

This was troubling. The note was laced in coded messages that he and Kingsley had developed in the years it took for him to graduate through Auror training. The older man had taken Harry under his wing before any other Ministry higher-ups could even blink, which was honestly, one of the best things in the world for Harry. It was Kingsley that got him back into Grimmauld Place, under the protection of the old Black home when the whole world seemed to want a piece of Harry, and it was Kingsley that introduced him to his Squib therapist. It had also been Kinglsey that had taken Harry under his wing, giving him time to grieve and rant and grow and heal after the war, all without judgement. Kingsley had just smiled and told Harry that he had promised Sirius that he would watch out for Harry, and Kingsley was now making good on his promise. 

Harry flipped the note over and paused, thinking over the message. “Consultant work” was their speak for “off record,” and “needs expert eye” always sent a chill down his spine when he read it. There was Dark Magic at Malfoy Manor, and Harry was to keep it from everyone, especially Robards who was always out for Death Eater and Sympathizer blood. And his crown jewel would be to snag a Malfoy and have the charge stick.

Scratching the side of his face, Harry sighed as he crumbled and threw his new assignment on top of the small pile of multicolored Ministry memos before it picked itself up, curling in a smokeless fire, obliterated. One of the purple aeroplanes trembled, but it fell undisturbed back into the pile.

Harry’s magic trembled, and for a moment Harry felt the magic crawl up his arms to wrap around his shoulders. Something had changed, a future not seen. Fate had changed. 

Malfoy Manor, Harry thought, what a day ruiner. He never imagined that Lucius Malfoy would agree to let him come anywhere near the gates without a signed warrant from the Head of the DMLE himself. He sighed and decided not to file the authorisation form until after he spoke to Malfoy. Harry’s magic twirled up his spine and settled across his shoulders like a cloak. He hadn’t seen any of the Malfoys in a year, maybe longer. Work had swamped him.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses and leaned back in his wooden desk chair. His partner Neville Longbottom looked up from his pile on his own desk and frowned slightly at the interruption. At seeing Harry’s look, he perked up at the chance to take the piss at his friend.

“What’s this one?” Neville asked with an easy grin, “Another wealthy dowager needing a boggart removed?” 

Neville laughed, but Harry did not. He was a Chief Inspector, for Merlin’s sake. He had at least two cases of the sort in the last year alone. It was demeaning work fit for those poor sods in the Beast Division in the DRCMC, but he and Neville both understood it was to keep the Man-Who-Lived a safe, friendly face while the politicians played roughshod on dismantling the politics that set up both Wizarding Wars. At least with running the unsolved files, he and Neville had a chance of some action. Kingsley had originally had him close, being the lowest ranked Auror by several levels in the Minister’s Auror Guard for special operations during his training. It was an impressive assignment, one that Aurors coveted, but Harry knew it was to cut costs by keeping both of them safe at the same time and to give Harry formidable experience without putting him fully at risk on a beat. 

“No,” Harry said with a frown as he looked back over at his aeroplane box, “I’m going to be out for the day. Kingsley wants me to go and take a statement. Determine if it’s a legitimate case.” 

Neville perked up. “Need back up?” 

“Oh no,” Harry almost laughed. “This is a solo interview.” A niffler would be invited into Gringotts before any other Auror would ever be willingly invited into Malfoy Manor. “I’m going to take a statement, not participate in a duel.” 

The only two caveats to Harry’s Auror duties were the now-dead Dark Lord and the Malfoy family. As Harry had spoken in defense of the Malfoys in the trials in the weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, as far as the DMLE and Kingsley were concerned, anything Malfoy related was Harry’s personal problem, and coupled that with an even mention of Voldemort’s name further cemented the task to Harry’s first purview.

Kinglsey had patted Harry on the shoulder when Draco Malfoy’s trial concluded two months after the Battle of Hogwarts. “They’re your problem now,” he laughed. Harry had not. 

Lucius Malfoy carried the longest sentence out of the three. He had served three years in Azkaban and was now on his ten years of probation, with five of those years magicless by way of specialized manacles. He was to avoid all known Death Eaters and Sympathizers barring his immediate family. He had not been seen in public since his release from Azkaban last year. His trial and sentencing was the most controversial as many of the known Death Eaters either died or ran after the War. Many on the Wizengamot, old Purebloods who had known Lucius since he was a child, wanted to create an illusion that trials for former Death Eaters would be fair. To the public, it was anything but not. 

Narcissa, who had never carried the Dark Mark, was on probation for seven years. Her magic was not restricted, but she was ordered to report to her maiden Head of Family, which was to Harry’s surprise and horror, himself. However, despite all odds, Harry had grown to enjoy her letters. They were mostly about her and Draco, two of the five remaining members of the House of Black, and their writing relationship had shifted once Harry decided to write back to the witch. At the beginning, nothing written was too overtly personal, but now several years into their correspondence, Harry considered Narcissa a dependable owl-pal. Harry knew that Narcissa had taken up mind healing as a hobby to help her husband transition to a post-Azkaban life, and the two had discussed at length the differences in muggle psychiatry health practices and magical mind healing. Narcissa was always careful to write about Lucius in her letters, but Harry understood where Narcissa walked the line of obeying her probation and protecting her husband. Lucius was not his favorite person to read about anyway, and Harry enjoyed reading Narcissa's gossip about her son renovating the Manor as he himself was renovating Grimmauld Place. 

Draco Malfoy, in light of the circumstances of his Marking, anti-Voldemort actions during the war, and general age, was given three years of probation, with no criminal record. He was the youngest of the Death Eaters, and he was the last marked by a vengeful Voldemort. His lack of what would be considered “true punishment” by outsiders was questioned by many, but Harry knew firsthand how cruel a punishment it was for a son to be judged for his father’s actions. Harry had spoken at each Malfoys’ trial for fairness in sentencing, but at youngest Malfoys’, he voiced his opinion most ardently: Draco Malfoy was a boy who survived. It had worked, and after the sentencing, Harry tossed Malfoy back his old wand that Harry had stolen from him months before. Harry thanked Malfoy for his wand's loyalty, and Malfoy had only nodded before leaving with Narcissa. 

And so, the Malfoy family survived the war fairly unscathed, and as law required, no fines were exerted, which set off a new populist movement in the Ministry of Magic. For the last year of the war, by testimony, there were only two wands in the hands of the Malfoy family, and for the last three months of the war, there was only one, and Draco was using it for school work. The spells registered on it were reflected of schoolwork at the time, and noticeably bereft of spellwork associated with Battle. There could be no fines against the Malfoys because they did not use recorded violent spellwork in the service of Lord Voldemort. They could not be punished again for the fines Lucius Malfoy incurred for his capture at the Department of Mysteries in 1996, and they could not be punished for quartering Voldemort because the Ministry of Magic had made it legal to do so once Thicknesse took office. 

The lack of “deserved” punishment of the Malfoys as well as other captured Sympathizers truly rankled many a witch and wizard. Harry’s own father-in-law would help lead the push for the use of scalable fines in tandem with prison sentences. And as such, the Weasley and Malfoy feud lived on, with Harry stuck in the middle. Ron and the rest of the Weasley boys bristled when any Malfoy or even Black was mentioned in conversation, and over Christmas last, Harry had gotten into a row with Molly after an ill-timed comment about Sirius that left Ginny spitting mad at Harry. It took Arthur sending Ginny home after a week of her sleeping back over in her old bedroom at the Burrow for her to return back to Grimmauld Place. The following months after that argument were rough on their young marriage. Ginny already disliked that Andromeda and Teddy lived in Grimmauld Place with them, but Harry put his foot down and was determined to keep his small, makeshift family as close as possible. Or maybe it was that Harry balked at a move to Devon or Holyhead. He tried not to dwell too hard on the argument until Gin told him exactly what she wanted anyway.

Harry looked up at Neville who still looked worried. “Are you sure?” Neville asked gently, “I can pull myself off my cold case for a bit and pick Hermione’s brain tonight about which Death Eater killed Madam Bones.” 

Harry laughed quietly. “No, it’s fine, but cover for me if Robards asks where I am. Is it drinks out again after work?”

“Hermione wants us to give her some popular Wizardly children’s book ideas. She’s completely vetoed anything from Beedle the Bard, which is the classic,” Neville complained. “Then, when she explained Peter Pan to Ron, he refused to let the nursery be painted after the Fae. He’s still pulling for a Chudley Cannons nursery.” Neville and Harry shared a strained grin. Hermione’s quest to create the perfect nursery was scary for a woman who wasn’t even pregnant yet, but Harry and Neville would never, even upon pain of death, tell Hermione that. She was Ron’s problem, and they didn’t live with Harry (who had painted with Luna and Andromeda a very adorable Babbity Rabbit mural for Teddy’s room).

“I think I’ll skip out tonight,” Harry said, “Besides, you’re going to have to do some serious legwork on that one.” Harry pointed at Neville’s file and continued, “Hermione’s not going to be happy if you hand it over and tell her, ‘Muggle Policemen found her dead in a room, locked from the inside.’ As much as she loves a good game of Cluedo, she won’t do our research anymore.” 

Neville let out a short laugh and pulled the file back towards his face. He kicked back in the chair, resting his long legs on the desk. Returning back to his work, Neville nodded a goodbye to his friend, and Harry grabbed his burgundy Auror’s jacket. With a twist of his hips, Harry was gone. Neville rolled his eyes. If the new Head of the DMLE found out that Harry could bypass the Ministry’s security without going to the Atrium, there would be so much paperwork to file.


	2. The Gates of Malfoy Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry comes to Malfoy Manor to meet with the Family Head, and he begins to realise that all is not what it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited on 19/02/2021

From the depths of the Ministry Building under Whitehall in London to the wooded lands of Wiltshire, Harry reappeared on a gravel driveway in front of a tall metal gate. 

At the gates of Malfoy Manor, the sun was shining, and Harry could breathe easier than he could in the depths of the Ministry. It was the very beginning of spring, and the first white and yellow flowers at the base of the impressive hedges were beginning to emerge from their winter sleep. Narcissus, Harry’s mind supplied as he looked at the flowers. Spring was coming. 

A sharp crack echoed in the air, and Draco Malfoy Apparated behind the large, impressive wrought iron gate. His hooded grey eyes sharpened as he looked over Harry, and Harry was momentarily struck with how much he looked like Mrs. Malfoy. He frowned at Harry and sniffed snottily. Harry internally sighed. 

In the time that Harry had last seen Malfoy, they both had begun to grow into their own as men. Malfoy’s face had finally filled out, losing that pointed look, and he had shot up again in height. He seemed as if he was a wizard finally confident in himself first. Harry envied him a little despite Malfoy’s sentencing and patrol, for at least he had his mother to look out for his best interests. 

Malfoy’s blond hair was longer now, in fact, longest that Harry had ever seen it. It was not slicked back like he used to do in their second year at Hogwarts but now it hung free around his shoulders and face, like a younger version of his father. He looked well for a man who barely scraped away from an Azkaban sentence. 

Harry felt his magic clench his shoulders, and he mentally paused. He shouldn’t think about Malfoy in that light; after all, he was the one to supply testimony in his defense. 

Harry nodded at Malfoy, and Malfoy raised his wand hand to the gate, unlocking the enchantments. The click and twisting of the gate’s locks reverberated in the quiet of the spring day, and Harry looked past Malfoy to the large Manor in the distance. The gate swung open, and Harry and Malfoy physically faced each other for the first time in well over two years. 

“Auror Potter,” Malfoy said as he nodded back. “Good to see the Ministry feels fit to come timely when a Malfoy calls with information.” 

Harry watched as Malfoy’s face settle in a frown, and Harry felt the need to frown in return. His magic swirled nervously behind his back, and for a moment, Harry saw Malfoy’s eyes flick to look past Harry’s shoulder before resettling on Harry’s face. Malfoy was sensitive to magic, Harry thought to himself. It was good information to know, especially about someone who used to be his enemy.

“Auror Chief Inspector now, Malfoy. Anyways, I got the memo this morning. When did you owl the Minister’s Office?” Harry asked, stepping through the gate. The sand-coloured gravel shifted under his feet. If Malfoy had something snotty to say about Harry’s fast acceleration up the Auror ranks, he didn’t let much filter onto his face. Besides, Harry thought, it’s not like he needed to file a search warrant with higher-ups for Malfoy Manor now as an Inspector, he could authorise it himself. 

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Not long after Imbolc.” Malfoy replied unhelpfully. 

Harry almost rolled his eyes himself. He should have known that Malfoy practiced the old Celtic traditions not advertised openly at Hogwarts. Harry was still a little flummoxed with Andromeda’s desire to celebrate Saturnalia and Yule over Christmas, but he enjoyed it all just the same. Andromeda wanted to teach Teddy the traditions that she had learned in her childhood and shared with her husband and daughter. It was only natural that she would want to share it with her only grandson, and Harry was glad to go along to keep Andromeda in higher spirits during the holidays.

Harry turned away from his thoughts and noticed that Malfoy was still talking, and Harry honestly wasn’t surprised. Here was the same Draco Malfoy that he had known in school, the git who loved the sound of his own voice. 

“It was this last Samhain that I took possession of the home’s enchantments as the Family Head, and of course, as the Wheel turns, I am becoming more aware of some magical discrepancies on the grounds.” The taller man prattled on as he took a step towards the home as he gestured towards the hedges to show Harry something that the Auror couldn’t see clearly because of the enormously tall bushes.

Harry did the math from the first of the month. From the end of January to the beginning of February, Harry spent his evenings taking orders from Andromeda and Kreacher on how best to clean every nook and cranny they could find in the open rooms of the house. Harry didn’t want to look at another snake or raven motif that was etched into the baseboards or crown mouldings of the house. At least things got easier to manage once they had removed the carpet in their first year of them living in the home. Harry couldn’t imagine ever letting Teddy crawl on those floors before they refinished the wood and stone. 

“Imbolc is in the first week of February! That, that’s almost two weeks!” Harry said in exasperation. “You should have just owled me, Malfoy. It would have been a lot faster.” 

And with a less interplay between the Minister’s office and the drama that would ensue if and when Robards found out that Malfoy took liberties in contacting others in the Ministry first. That old pissant of a boss would take his time demeaning Harry before Kinglsey would step in, but Robards was always looking to collar a Malfoy, and once Harry had taken two of the three remaining Malfoys away from what many saw as a well deserved Azkaban cell, Robards was determined to find a probable cause. 

Harry just wanted to move on and do better. If Narcissa and Draco Malfoy, Merlin, even if Lucius Malfoy, kept with the provisions of their parole, Harry would learn to be okay with what the Wizengamot had ruled. He was learning to be okay with Mrs. Malfoy at least from a comfortable distance, but then again, his position as an Auror and Head of the House of Black put him in a very unique situation, as was the story of his life. He had to straddle some sort of a line.

Lifting an eyebrow in distaste, Malfoy shot him a glare. “Would you have even answered, Potter?” Malfoy asked blandly in return. He turned, closing the gates with his wand hand again, and gestured down the pebbled path for Harry to follow.

Harry leveled a sour look at the blonde. He knew that Malfoy knew about their family relationship and the letters his mother was required to send. Harry and Malfoy’s tentative working relationship was basically nonexistent, but Harry was a professional, he reminded himself. It wasn’t like Malfoy would try to manhandle him like those old Dowagers would when a boggart hideyhole would start shaking. Harry would have still come in a sour mood too, but now they’d never know the truth, would they? 

“Sure, to tell you to contact the actual Auror’s Office. Honestly, Malfoy, I know you can understand interdepartmental politics,” Harry huffed. Robards was going to chew him out if he ever caught wind that Harry was visiting the Malfoys on Auror time, but Kingsley was his boss’s boss’s boss and the Minister of Magic to boot. Robards could get stuffed.

He started in step with Malfoy towards the Manor, and when Malfoy twisted in the Apparation, Harry followed. They reappeared a mile down the path alongside each other at the far edge of the hedged driveway, in front of the steps up the impressive Elizabethan façade of Malfoy Manor that seemed more glass than wall. No wonder Malfoy was a git if he grew up living here as the only child. He probably never saw another child his own age until he got his Hogwarts letter.

And now that child was a Head of a Family, just like him. The Wizarding world was in trouble.

“How’d did your father take to his son usurping him?” Harry asked Malfoy quietly to break the tension and silence. 

Malfoy looked pointedly up at the Manor, and Harry followed Malfoy’s line of sight. 

From the many windows that ordained the front of the manor, Harry could see in the right corner of one of the windows on the first floor, the face of Lucius Malfoy staring down from below like some miscreant house-elf plotting. Harry thought very briefly that he looked like Kreacher the first time Harry met him the first time he went to Grimmauld Place as a teen. 

Malfoy was lucky that there probably was a Family Magic Clause that kept Malfoy Senior from smothering him one night with a pillow. After all, filicide was by most’s standards the most egregious and abominable crime one could commit in the Magical Community. 

Malfoy frowned as he stared up at his father’s face. Lucius Malfoy stepped back into the room, and the curtain shifted before going still. 

Merlin, Harry thought to himself, the drama was still strong in the elder Malfoy. 

“Not well,” his former school rival admitted freely. Malfoy sighed and brushed his hair out of his face, pulling it behind his ear. Harry watched as Malfoy’s face changed, and Harry’s magic creeped down his right arm. 

He clenched his hand to shake off the feeling. Malfoy answered a question without gassing on about his entire life story was a refreshing change of verbal pace. At least this time, the answer stayed short!

Malfoy cleared his throat and looked back at Harry instead of his home. “His second stay in Azkaban was not kind to him,” Malfoy explained. “When he finally served the minimum and was granted his parole, Mother and I realized that something was deeply wrong when he tried to send me off to Hogwarts September the year before last. He thought it was the beginning of fifth year. I had to take over before the Family Magic stripped him of all of his facilities to protect the line.” 

Harry stared. Mrs. Malfoy had not written about this. “Merlin, Malfoy,” Harry began, “I should have checked in person for you and your mother’s sake. He hasn’t tried to pick up a wand has he?” Harry asked, knowing that it was one of the stipulations of his parole. 

Malfoy shook his head negative. “He hasn’t touched one to my best knowledge, but he still does carry around that cane so watch your shins,” the blonde warned with a slight grin to break up the grim truth. “We had to employ a mind healer to help tend to him. He’s much more cognizant now, and he’s aware of what is going on around him, much to his constant disappointment.” 

Harry watched as Malfoy began to walk towards the manor home. He still was a bit amazed that Draco Malfoy had ascended to the Head of the Family without it breaking in the tabloids. The Malfoy family had certainly enclosed around itself to protect Lucius then, but why take the time to contact him through Kingsley? Harry mused to himself. Lucius Malfoy may have been neutered magically, but he was still a well connected, dangerous bastard. Harry’s mind and magic spun at the implications of the son challenging and succeeding his father so effortlessly even with the incapacitation of his incarceration. Draco Malfoy was messing with something his father did not want him to discover, something with serious ramifications. 

Harry’s foot ground hard into the gravel, and he searched the windows for movement again. Nothing, but they were finally at the front entrance of Malfoy Manor. Harry had hoped that they would not have to go inside, but he was letting Malfoy walk him into the information because he knew that the blond git would volunteer more. 

Harry’s eyes looked around the outside property and surveyed. He knew that he stood nearby where the Snatchers had once dragged him up the lawn to what could have easily been a sticky end. 

A little over four years later, the horror of war still squirmed low in his gut. The nightmares and the physical reminders of those lost were enough to send his thoughts spiraling into depression. The horrors Hermione, Ron, and he had lived through that year seemed sometimes unimaginable, and he was especially glad in this moment that Hermione would never have to grace this doorstep again. At least Bellatrix Lestrange was worm-fodder now

Standing in front of the Manor in which he almost died at seventeen, Harry refocused as Malfoy made the final steps towards the manor doors. Malfoy faltered at the door slightly before stepping inside, and he turned back to look at Harry. 

Malfoy cleared his throat. He looked decidedly uncomfortable to talk for once. “I want you to know, Potter, that I’ve tried my best to eradicate the Dark Lord’s presence from the Manor. This was my home and never his—No matter how much he coveted it.” 

Harry’s magic flared at Malfoy’s words, sensing the earnesty, and the magic sent tendrils up his spine. The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stiffened, and his skin went gooseflesh. Restoring Malfoy Manor was pivotal to Malfoy, and Harry knew that had to acknowledge the suffering of his childhood rival without pitying him.

Harry looked Malfoy slightly in the eye to avoid a full mind spell but still wanted to maintain a tentative respect for the situation. He didn’t want a chance to pull or fall into an accidental memory from Malfoy, not from his time in the war. Harry knew that Malfoy had both been tortured like he was for the sake of learning Occlumency, Malfoy by his Aunt Bellatrix.

“I understand, Malfoy,” said Harry. “Voldemort always wanted the most beautiful things to destroy.”

Malfoy’s face greyed, and he swallowed uncomfortably. He nodded at Harry, and Harry was left wondering what really happened in the stately manor halls of Malfoy Manor. 

He unwillingly imagined it. Draco Malfoy, young and sixteen years old, surrounded by adult wizards and witches who had done the most despicable things imaginable. For a moment, he could see a hallway shrouded in darkness, and the glistening scales of Nagini slowly gliding into the darkness. Harry blinked. The answer was half hidden in the moments when Draco Malfoy who had lied to parents and aunt to save his Harry and his friends in this home, when Malfoy faltered in the Room of Requirement, and when Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort’s face in the forest. Had Voldemort wanted, and Harry stomped the rising thought down further and banished it. A Malfoy, particularly this Malfoy, would never want Harry’s pity. 

They entered the Manor’s front door together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> The HP Movies' Malfoy Manor is based upon a real life Elizabethan Manor, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. I incorporated some of the known historical descriptive language into describing the Malfoy Manor. "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall" was a popular description of the home because at the time it was built, glass was an expensive luxury.


	3. A Conversation at Malfoy Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry meets with Draco Malfoy to discuss what has brought the Auror to Malfoy Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited: 20/02/2021

The grand entry was bright, and Harry was pleased to see that his journey inside was up the stairs (instead down into the dungeon basement). The vaulted ceiling shown with a brightness fit for a jewel of Magical architecture. The finest of detail of which was shimmering high above on the all three floors of the grand building was a glistening chandelier that seemed to defy gravity in its proportion and grandeur. Light filtered in from the large windows, catching the crystal, and illuminating the room in prisms of rainbow light. 

Malfoy talked the entire time, telling Harry about different projects done. Apparently, he was on step twelve of a fifteen step plan to revitalize the Manor that had not been updated at all since his great-grandfather was a young boy when toilets were added to the Manor instead of vanishing the mess. Harry couldn’t even begin to try to school back his slightly horrified face.

“I know I’m being quoted triple the price for supplies,” Malfoy prattled on as they crossed the grand hall on the second floor, “It’s unfortunate, but I’m learning that is life. Father bristles every time I order a change of a room, but since we can’t convince the Goblins to create, we’ve had to be selective with our suppliers.”

Harry hummed in response and added, “It’s better that you hire out and do the spellwork yourself. The Goblin Nation can be right bastards when you’ve made them angry.” 

Malfoy gave him a sly grin in return, and Harry knew immediately what he was thinking. 

A very abridged version of his, Ron, and Hermione’s Gringotts’ break-in had been speculated for years, but everyone and their House Elf knew that Harry Potter had released a Gringotts’ dragon into Muggle London and miraculously got away with it. The Gryffindor trio’s tactic of staying out of even worse trouble was by keeping their damn mouths shut and allowing Bellatrix and Voldemort to take all the blame. After all, stranger things did happen in war. 

Malfoy continued his tour up another flight of stairs. Harry passed by portraits, landscapes, armor sets from all around the world, vases from kingdoms near and dynasties far away. The breadth of the Malfoy wealth was frankly a little awe inspiring, especially when considering that this was the faction head of some of the most mentally unstable. 

Harry privately was amazed that this place hadn’t gone up in a blast of Fiendfyre, especially after the trials years ago, but then again, as he gazed over at Malfoy’s shoulder as the taller man walked in front of him, he was struck by the profile Malfoy had created in his rebuilding of the Manor. Malfoy had changed. There was power here, a desire to show the world that the Malfoy family was more than just what Lucius had dragged the family through. Harry wondered if this power was a part of the Malfoy family magic, and perhaps, he wondered if this is why Voldemort was so quick to reestablish this manor as his fortress. 

In a strange way, Harry could appreciate what Malfoy had created to reclaim from the Dark magic that had twisted in its abuse. Despite the difference in eras their respective homes were built, Harry could see the fine thread of Malfoy’s magic in every room. Malfoy wanted to heal after the war and return back to what he saw was normal for a Malfoy in Wiltshire. 

Andromeda had told him once upon a time, that for the Black family, London was the seat of power. Harry remembered it so clearly, Andromeda rocking a fussy baby Teddy as Harry and Kreacher sanded the wooden floors on the ground floor to apply a new varnish. Kreacher had smiled and told them about how Phineas Nigellus, the first to live here at Grimmauld Place had determined that the position of the home was perfect to maintain control over the river here. Harry had looked out the window to view the green, covered reservoir across the street and wondered what the old hated Hogwarts Headmaster had been thinking.

In his own efforts at Grimmauld Place, Harry knew first hand the challenges of maintaining a Magical family home. Harry himself had to relearn whole sections of Divination and delve slowly into the basics of Arithmancy to struggle through one of Andromeda’s sit down planning sessions. It wasn’t just a moment’s decision of paint colors; it was lifelong, faceted effort. There was a reason why even at Hogwarts the school was emptied every year in the summer except for the Headmaster, well, Harry corrected himself, the Headmistress. The communion between Head and Home was sacred, and for the family, when both were aligned, everyone prospered. 

Now, four years in Grimmauld Place, Harry was finally comfortable in his home as Ginny was becoming more uncomfortable in London, but as Harry kept telling her, if she would spend more time in the home rather than spending it in Holyhead, then Number 12 would respond to her better. Last year at Yule, they had the same argument again, ending with Gin rolling her eyes, walking back into the kitchen, and ignoring Harry trying to teach Teddy how to safely slide down the banister. Kreacher, too blitzed on a Butterbeer, had called everyone by the wrong name, Harry, Sirius; Andromeda, Isla; Ginny, Lysandra; and Teddy, Arcturus. 

Harry’s musings were interrupted as the two men made their way to the top floor of the grand manor. On the top floor of the Manor, Malfoy led Harry down a long gallery filled with portraits and artifacts. 

As they stepped towards the main room on the hall, the magic of the Manor flew into Harry testing him. 

Harry paused for a moment. Malfoy’s family magic wasn’t oppressive, but Harry could feel the type of control that it was trying to exert in examining him. It reminded him of how the magic felt when he had entered the library at Grimmauld Place after the house began to like him, after about six months of painstakingly fixing the house and moving Andromeda and Teddy in with him. The magic had that same squeezing effect on the mind like it was judging his intentions. Harry coughed as the magic squeezed tight against his midsection where his wand was strapped in its holster. The Manor definitely remembered him. 

And as fast as it appeared, it was gone, and Harry sagged slightly, his arm catching the wall. 

Smirking, Malfoy watched as Harry stood fixed as the magic of the manor rush over Harry’s body. 

“I’ve never seen the Manor examine someone before,” he explained. “You’re the first person I’ve brought up here.” 

“Well, I hope I’ve passed whatever test,” Harry retorted. Malfoy could have at least warned him. 

“You have,” the blond man replied. He pushed his hair back behind his ear. “You’ve been quiet, Potter. Don’t tell me that Mother spoiled all my surprises on how I’ve updated the Manor.”

Harry chuckled. Mrs. Malfoy had not gone into the detail that she should have. Malfoy was right to be proud of what he had done here. For how reclusive Malfoy was now in society, his time spent was definitely shone here in his home, and the Manor was thriving under his care. 

What Malfoy had done here in the years that he was under parole was nothing short of spectacular. Even dark artifacts that Harry knew only from old Auror’s reports were gone from the open or even hidden behind secreted rooms, now behind glass and cataloged like museum pieces were given new life as tools for reeducation, but for Harry who knew Malfoy’s pride at his family name, no matter how low it was now, this was a big step forward for the former Slytherin. 

The two walked a bit further until Malfoy stopped and spun on his heel to address Harry.

“This is my office, Potter. Please don’t agitate the portraits,” Malfoy said as the mahogany door opened. 

Inside the large office, warm mahogany wood and cream walls surrounded three of the walls. The fourth wall was the large windows that faced the front of the manor, letting in the light. Portraits of mostly white and grey haired men and women dozed in the frames, and in the landscape painting behind the desk, a small white and brown hunting dog pointed and flushed pheasants that lay hidden in the open pastoral fields. 

Beside the desk was a small sitting area closer to the fireplace, Harry noticed a tea set being set by a small house elf. Harry watched it squeaked in shame of being noticed by him and disappeared with a pop. 

Malfoy indicated with a hand, and Harry sat gently on the edge of one of the chairs before leaning back. He gently touched the wood under his hand and shifted, thankful that at least the seat was plush. 

Tea was poured and doctored before either spoke. Malfoy handed Harry his, and Harry briefly wondered how bizarre his day was going to be. Harry held the saucer while Malfoy struggled briefly to begin speaking. 

“Let me debrief you before we head out to the far field,” Malfoy said after casting a silencing and anti-eavesdropping spell around the room. 

Harry raised an eyebrow, and Malfoy answered his unvoiced question. “I don’t trust my father’s mind anymore. If he had an iota of an idea of what I found, he would not think twice about breaking his parole.” 

Harry grimaced. It was going to be this kind of day. Right, he was going to need more sugar.

“Let’s start with the basics then. What’s in the far field?” Harry asked. He pulled with his magic and levitated two more cubes of sugar and the small spoon to him. It was a bit more sugar since he was trying to cut back, but he figured he needed the small boost. His wand hummed slightly in the holster under his armpit, and his fingers let go of the warmth of his magic. 

Malfoy stared at him, looking momentarily caught off guard. Harry wondered if it was because of his use of wandless magic, but Malfoy cleared his throat after a moment and continued. 

“Off the record, Potter,” he requested. “I need you to keep this out of your Auror notes until the Minister clears it. This level of magical power is perhaps what has kept the Malfoy family afloat for centuries despite our patrilineal stupidity for only birthing one male heir a generation and what has kept the Malfoy family as one of the foremost influences in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Wizengamot, and the Wizards’ Council.” 

Harry blinked owlishly at Malfoy but nodded. What the world had he gotten himself into? 

“I decide when we bring Kingsley in,” Harry said, gesturing with his cup, “but I won’t run my mouth over what your family line has done before Voldemort’s return.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. Harry wanted to throw the hot cup at him. 

Leaning back into his chair, Malfoy looked like he was contemplating why he had even called upon Harry to come out the property at all. “No Golden Trio or whatever you’re calling yourself these days,” he added, requesting Harry something that a few years ago, he could have never promised. 

“Malfoy,” Harry replied with a slight sigh of exasperation. “Hermione’s busy with her new role in the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Ron’s jogged off and left the Force. You know we can work independently.” 

Besides, Hermione would kill him if he dropped another mystery on her lap. 

Malfoy nodded. “Well,” he said, “I’m holding you to that.” He paused. “What I am about to describe, most people in the Isles have no idea even exist anymore besides in lore and legend.” Malfoy paused again and set his teacup back in the saucer that he held aloft. “Malfoy Manor is unique in that it is the only private, functional ritual Stone Circle in the British Isles.”

“A Stone Circle?” Harry asked incredulously. A small memory of a school trip that the Dursleys refused to allow him on flickered across his mind as was gone in a moment.

“Yes, Potter, a Stone Circle,” he replied like Harry’s head was the one made of stone. “Think of a large field with a series of standing stones that form circles. The ancient druids and warlocks used them as focus points to practice magic, in the time before wand knowledge emerged. At one time, the British Isles had many circles, stretching from shore to shore to protect and care for the lands. It is the basis of Hedge Magic, and it’s perhaps the strongest protective magic outside of blood magic, despite its nontraditional focus.” 

Merlin, a history lesson from the Pureblood prat. Harry refocused and asked a follow up question. “Protective magic for what?” 

“Well, just about anything, depends on what is given in return, but the Stone Circle here at the Manor is used primarily for blessing the land.” 

“For what? It’s land.” Harry replied in confusion. 

Malfoy stilled for a moment on his tea and set his cup down on the table. “Potter. Stop repeating me, and listen,” Malfoy said, looking slightly pained, “Please tell me you honestly don’t think that magic doesn’t exist in the earth?” He fixed Harry with a look. “You have how many years of a Hogwarts education, and you wonder if magic doesn’t exist beyond some special flora and fauna?” 

Harry blushed slightly, turning away from Malfoy’s glare. School was more difficult than Harry would freely admit beyond Ron and Hermione and maybe Neville. Thank Merlin that he was best friends with Hermione Granger all six years of school, or Harry would have never done half as well as he did. 

“Magical theory has always been, well, difficult for me,” Harry admitted. “I had problems focusing in school, and I always had the power and luck to force success. I’m catching up slowly, learning all of the theory, but I just keep learning on my feet as it is.” 

Honesty for honesty, Harry thought as his hand spasmed. He’d gain more knowledge from Malfoy if he kept him talking. 

Malfoy frowned and looked away. Harry thought he wanted to say something snotty, but time and age and a war had seemed to have cooled Malfoy’s hot head as much as it had cooled Harry’s. 

“Potter, it’s your heritage. I mean, this goes beyond just ‘light’ and ‘dark’ magic,” Malfoy said flexing his index and middle fingers to indicate stressed terms. “It’s the understanding and respect that we wizards are guardians for the land, and the land in return blesses wizards and other magical creatures with magic. Just like when a wizard receives an improbable blessing, there are times when the land needs a blessing in return. We wizards who are entrusted to protect and uphold the land. You know, wait,” Malfoy paused and stood up.

Malfoy walked over to his desk and pulled out a small box out of one of the top drawers. He walked back over to Harry, and upon opening it, he began flipping through the yellow, green, and blue paper cards inside. He pulled a yellow card from the box and inspected it. He laid it on top of the box and tapped the card with his wand. The same house elf appeared with an old, thick book and laid it on the table before disappearing without a word. Malfoy set the box down onto the table. Harry had a feeling that the book box and the house elf would return again.

“I should have realized that Weasley and Granger just assumed you knew it because you’re a Half-Blood. Let’s educate you then, Potter. You’re a legacy for Merlin’s sake. You’re the Black Legacy!” He cried, looking a bit put out. “It’s my duty as the other Black Scion, and I won’t have you embarrassing me at the Ministry.” He held out the book to Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy hadn’t stepped foot in the Ministry of Magic since his final parole hearing almost a year ago and that was mandatory. Anything either Mrs. Malfoy and the new, albeit unknown, Malfoy Head did now was by owl. 

“Sure Malfoy, let me pencil in some light reading in my busy schedule,” Harry said, reaching for the book. 

Malfoy smirked as he handed it over. “I’ll make a respectable wizard out of you yet, Potter,” he said before moving on. Harry placed it in his inner pocket, feeling the expandable charm envelop the large book seamlessly. 

Harry and Malfoy then spent the next thirty minutes discussing the general history of ritual stones themselves. Runic, blood, fertility magic, all large portions of ritual magic that was all but banned or heavily regulated by the British Ministry of Magic now, and Harry realised that Malfoy was risking a lot drudging this to an Auror’s purview. 

The Stone Circle could amplify the spells of the caster, and since protection magic was benevolent and did not impact the power of the land, the Malfoy family could pledge power and safety of its own and reuse it sustainably because the land was tied to them and them the land. Malfoy had basically a Magical Bail Out card that could be used over and over again. Wizards would kill for this kind of magic, and the Malfoy family had been using it probably exclusively for centuries. 

As Malfoy continued his magical history lesson, Harry grew more and more concerned as he sipped his still hot tea. Purebloods and their trinkets, he mused, who else would magic a tea set to always keep a cuppa hot? Harry’s magic buzzed, and he had to center his mind for a moment. 

Harry asked Malfoy why he reported in the first place. 

“After all,” Harry stated as he gently swirled the sugar at the bottom of his tea cup. A skull, he thought, examining the cup. It was an all too familiar sign. “You’ve been doing all of the magical renovations here yourself. You’re a very capable wizard. You’re not hiring out for even the smallest parts of these renovations. Why ask for help in this?”

Malfoy looked at his own cup, and his thin nose caught the light from the windows as Harry stared at him. 

Harry knew first hand how inventive a wizard Malfoy was. Harry knew that Malfoy was going to say that he needed Harry’s help, and Harry knew but didn’t want to admit that facing Malfoy Manor was going to open a new Pandora’s Box of problems.

“This area of knowledge, really, is unknown to me except in brief theory,” Malfoy admitted. “I was also sealed against that side of the property, and until I received the enchantments as the new Head of the Family, I didn’t even know the ritual area existed. I’ve been taking my time working through it. What I discovered,” Malfoy faltered, “I knew it was a big deal.” He took an abnormally large drink of his tea. 

The conversation lulled for a moment, but Malfoy continued. “This is something not spoken of at Hogwarts, and since you weren’t raised like a Pureblood, please, don’t take it as a slight Potter, it’s the truth, had your parents or Black had raised you, you would have been raised Pure.” 

Malfoy anticipated correctly a cross reply, and Harry clicked his lips back together, shutting his mouth. 

“As you’re probably aware, the old Family Heads have special rule over a family’s magic. For many families, it is a special magical skill that is taught and passed down through grimoires and other family legacies. For the Malfoy Family, it is tending to the Stone Circle because it gives us the ability to be above and to tend to so many different levels of magic at once. The magic of the Hedge, of the land, is tied to many Sacred Families, but none so important as the Malfoy Family due to our seat here in Wiltshire. This Stone Circle, especially the innermost circle here at the manor, is supposedly only entered by the Head of the Family and his spouse for the most important of rituals.” 

Harry could hear the catch. “Supposedly? You mean traditionally.” 

Malfoy paused, and he looked away at the fire in the hearth. “Yes, the Head of the Family and spouse are honor-bound to protect the family’s secrets which include the Stone Circle, but other family members have entered and practiced magic in the Circle for ritual work. I did not tell Minister Shacklebolt the whole truth. I wrote to him that I didn’t think it was the Dark Lord, but…” He trailed off lost in a memory. Harry leaned forward. 

“Malfoy, just tell me,“ said Harry, “no matter how insignificant it is. I can only help you if you tell me.” 

Malfoy set pensive for a moment, holding his left arm against his chest and balancing his tea set in his right hand. Harry could feel Malfoy’s magic slosh back and forth like waves on a lake at the beginning of a storm. 

“When I entered the second Stone Circle and saw the ceremony site, my arm burned where the Dark Mark once was. I assume the magic of the stones capture the residual magic.”

Both Harry and Malfoy grimace at the memory of Voldemort’s magic, but Malfoy continued on. “Potter, I questioned my parents about the circles. Mother let me Legilimens her mind. They have only entered the first circle, but they have never entered the second circle.” 

Harry nodded. “And you feel confident in your results? I know you were taught Occlumency by a formidable Legilimens, but do you think your Legilimency is strong enough?”

Malfoy considered Harry’s question for a moment before answering. 

“I am only because Mother offered it freely. Father would never submit, and his mental health is too frail. If he entered further, he could and probably would lie to me for spite,” Malfoy explained. “His grimoire and my grandfather’s personal grimoire were surrendered to me for preview. I haven’t finished Grandfather’s as it covers his whole life, but as of his fifties, he only wrote about his father and mother conducting two rites in the standing stones. The first was a call from the magic of the land to strengthen the land due to a devastating heatwave around the 1880’s just after they were married, and the second was plea rite for personal protection for the Malfoy family during the Global Wizarding War when Grindelwald began attacking France. The extended Malfoy family in France barely survived.”

Harry nodded and quietly asked what else would call the Family Head to the stones. Malfoy was clear and precise in his descriptions of events that would call for magic to be brought back to the lands. Dangerous weather periods were the first indicator followed by periods of widespread disease or war. It was all, as Malfoy suggested, based on maintaining and curating the magic back to the earth when the earth was too overtasked. 

“This is why I find my Mother and Father’s account troublesome. Based on my understanding, Father could have entered it as early as 1976 due to a meteorological drought but definitely sometimes between 1995 and 1998 due to the multiple year hydrological drought. They didn’t, but someone did because the drought ended. Someone had to have ended it, and the timeline is, well it’s the Dark Lord’s second ascension and death.”

Harry frowned and leaned back into his wooden chair to consider the conversation more. Malfoy made a lot of sense, and now, his experience in the Stone Circle seemed more than simply concerning. Harry remembered the horrible hot summer after the Triwizard’s Tournament, and the summers of 1996 and 1997 were equally rough. 1998 was a complete wash of a year; he barely remembered anything besides Horcrux hunting and the Battle of Hogwarts which wasn’t even halfway through that godforsaken year. Harry’s magic rolled down his back in disgust. The timeline matched near perfectly. 

“Do you think Voldemort ever used the Stone Circle to do a ritual?” Harry asked both wanting and not wanting to know the answer. 

Some days, he felt he would be dealing with the fallout from Voldemort even fifteen years into the future. 

Malfoy nodded yes, but added. “It definitely wasn’t destructive magic. The Stone Circle here is very particular, and destruction is not a great way to play favors when receiving magic from the earth. The magic of the Hedge is no longer strong enough to support destruction during even favourable times. If he had tried to use a ritual for destruction, he would have become a smear on the rocks, but,” Malfoy paused to consider his next words, “if he did a successful ritual there, Potter, the land there has power. It will have long lasting repercussions. He gave magic to aid the land, and he would have to have someone with him to push the magic into the earth. He would have asked for a magical boon in return, and his magic would poison whatever blessing received. I have to know what he did to protect the Stone Circle and the Malfoy Family.” 

Harry nodded with agreement. “And his magic would poison it.” He paused, “Look Malfoy, I’m going to keep this between Kingsley and I until we know more. You need to keep this quieter than quiet: no one in your family can know what we’re really doing or looking for. This is, this is getting into dangerous territory with the political climate. Malfoy Manor has a ritual circle on the property, and there’s probably no written record of it anywhere except in your office! Merlin, Malfoy, if any other Auror had been assigned this case…” Harry trailed off, and Malfoy nodded. 

They both knew what kind of deep reputation ending business flobbing this case would be for the both of them. 

“I understand, Potter. At the very least, any other would pass this off to the Unspeakables to strip whatever ritual magic existed to examine, and the Manor and Wiltshire would lose a large part of the residual magic just because the Dark Lord lived here for three years. Malfoy Manor has stood in some form here for ten centuries at this location. I do not want to see this family into a future without the magic,” Malfoy added, pushing his hair away from his brow. 

Malfoy’s face looked pinched in a way that Harry knew was only extreme exhaustion. Malfoy had been at this for a while, and he had considered a lot of angles to this problem that Harry probably would never really know or understand. “Potter, I have to ask you to help me in this. You know the Dark Lord better than any soul left alive.” 

Harry swallowed back a natural objection but continued to let Malfoy monologue. He definitely did, more than Malfoy would ever know. “It’s got to be more than that, Malfoy. It’s been four years now. There’s no chance for him to return, ever.” 

Harry had made sure of that with his life. 

Malfoy cleared his throat and sat up straighter in the seat. “I went to Shacklebolt because I need a second person to conduct magic in the circle to figure out where to even begin. I can’t wait for my fianceé and I to wed. She can not, Potter,” Malfoy stopped talking, and Harry could tell he wanted to say something else, but Malfoy continued, “She was too young for the Battle. She was never exposed to what we saw...” 

She never saw the evil we saw, Harry finished the thought in his own mind.

Harry nodded. He could understand trying to keep a loved one away from Voldemort’s tainted magic. He wished more than once that he could have spared Gin, even when they were children. 

“Okay,” he agreed, “I’ll do it.” Harry frowned, but continued, “I’m the most qualified, and I would want to know first and be center if Voldemort is involved.” 

They spent a few more minutes discussing the particulars of the land, and Harry asked a few more questions about other stone circles or ritual sites as his Hogwarts and Auror education was greatly bereft. 

Malfoy explained that they were really only covered briefly in N.E.W.T. level Astronomy and Ancient Runes, and it was only one or two theoretical or historical based chapters at most. One popular question on the N.E.W.T. Ancient Runes was a translation of an Edda describing the return of the sun from the other world after a solar eclipse. The story itself was a tale of ritual magic, where one brave witch sacrificed herself the save the sun from those who plucked it out the sky.

Ritual magic, Malfoy explained gently, was technically dark magic. Old magic would be a better term because it did not rely on wands at all. It relied on astronomy and runic symbols. Most families never were aware ritual sites existed except in fables; let alone one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight having a personal one on the family property. 

Rituals now were the study and theoretical work of some in the Department of Mysteries, deep underground in the Ministry, and Malfoy scoffed that it was unnatural to perform ritual magic that deep, that the Unspeakables were playing with fire. Rituals now were practiced magic beyond the land, and with no give and take, all the success of the ritual relied on the conviction and ability and power of intent of the user. Harry felt the information Malfoy gave him was true, and he felt unsettled with the deeper level of knowledge of magic’s past than his years at Hogwarts ever had clued him on. 

In one of the conversation lulls, Malfoy poured more tea to his and Harry’s teacup now that they had sat for longer than Harry had imagined they’d be willing to, and Harry asked Malfoy what else he had been doing in the last two years. Malfoy had told him about starting renovations and picking up reading and music again now that he didn’t feel like the Dark Lord and his snake was watching him every step, and Harry told him about his renovations to Grimmauld Place and how he was raising his godson. Harry was surprised to hear that the blond man had visited the home as a child and that it had left an impression still the day. They both laughed at the gauche traditions of beheaded House Elves, and Malfoy explained how the trend got started. They were both glad to see that era over.

While he would never voice this to Malfoy, Harry had to at least give Malfoy some mental congratulations. He had done what most former Death Eaters or Snatchers had found impossible: he had not recidivate. He had also kept his father, and Merlin knows that was a magnificent miracle in itself, from the DMLE’s eyes and ears. 

Harry gestured over to the mantle of the fireplace, to one of the glass contained former Dark objects. It was a golden dial, and beside it laid a card filled with Malfoy’s neat scrawl. “What’s with the displays, Malfoy? You thinking about opening a museum?”

Malfoy smiled. “Potter, you’re fishing.” He wagged a finger at Harry. “Malfoy Manor has so many Dark Objects, but the law states that as long as I don’t use them for their intended purpose and I catalogue them with the information on when and how they are built for provenance, they are able to be retained.” 

It was the law, technically. Harry let out a laugh. 

“You’ve done a hell of a job here with the renovations, but what about a career? I know you went back to Hogwarts with Hermione, and you both sat your N.E.W.T.s.” 

Malfoy stilled, and he sighed. “It’s not like that, Potter. I could have done anything if I hadn’t been a Malfoy.” He gestured at his arm where they both knew the Dark Mark once was branded in a magical tattoo. Now it was a flesh-colored discolored pucker of a scar. “My probation is over, and I’m lucky that the Ministry allowed me to not be labeled officially as a Death Eater because of my age, but the memory of my involvement and my family’s involvement will not grant me any favors.” 

Harry was quiet, and his magic whispered to him. Draco Malfoy was rebuilt and rebuilding like the Manor around him. There was a reason he was in this office, and it wasn’t just for this case. 

“I have more money than I could ever spend in ten lifetimes,” Malfoy continued without an ounce of pride in his voice. “I’ve become a man of leisure who dabbles in whatever academic interest catches my mind. I have nothing, and yet, I have everything anyone else would want.” 

Harry did not know what to say, so he said nothing. But he did know Malfoy was a prat for trying to make that sound like a burden, so Harry refrained from rolling his eyes. At least Auror training and a lack of a Horcrux in his skull had cooled his sassy little mouth. 

Malfoy continued, “But to answer your question, I’m currently doing independent, theoretical research hopefully for St. Mungo’s. They are woefully underfunded in their understanding of hereditary curses.”

“Oh?” Harry asked honestly surprised, “You would think hereditary curses would be a part of St. Mungo’s first purview.”

Malfoy nodded. “One would think, but unfortunately, no,” he said, “hereditary curses follow the female line, from mother to daughter, maybe some generations pass, but it can lurk in a pureblood female line as a recessive factor.” 

Harry’s mind reeled with the ramifications. He was honestly surprised that Hermione or Gin, or even Andromeda, had never brought something like that to him. His first year after the war, Kingsley and Andromeda had pulled him kicking to St. Mungo’s to access his health after his refugee camping trip from hell, but besides Teddy’s wellness visits due to his Metamorphmagus abilities and his own quarterly Auror health physicals, no one really fussed about health visits to St. Mungo’s except for emergencies. 

“Why hasn’t anyone looked at this before?” Harry asked. “This could be lurking actively in at least a third of the population.”

Malfoy signed and shrugged his shoulders in a surprisingly uncouth moment of expression. 

“Most Purebloods are so inbred that it can be difficult to sort whether it was a blood curse that killed the witch or the complications of inbreeding,” Malfoy explained, “and traditionally, one of the most important tasks a young Pureblood witch can do is to provide a male heir. A horrible mix of sexism and ignorance that’s led to the reason why most of the Pureblood lines had to seek out the male heir above their daughter. The female heirs, well, they’re seen as a tool to unite the older families, but it doing so, spreads the curse to other lines.” 

Harry blinked owlishly at the explanation. All of the struggling Harry had after relearing Occlumency finally paid off in that moment because there was no way he would have ever held a neutral face at Malfoy saying _that._ Hermione would have a fit. He honestly wished he could show her this memory.

Harry politely coughed and asked, “What are you suggesting as the cure, potions? Or would that be too broad?”

“In a way, but, no, I’ve decided to dabble in Alchemy because hereditary curses are chronic, lifelong curses, so normal potion treatment declines after years of use. I’ve decided to try to create a specialized panacea,“ Malfoy said. 

And, Merlin, did Malfoy look ready to preen. Harry reckoned that he must have been the first Wizard Malfoy’s own same age to divulge this to. 

Malfoy gestured with his hand to the large bookcases in the room that reached high, twice, maybe three times Harry’s own height, up the wall to the far left of the fireplace. At least a hundred old manuscripts and tomes larger than Harry’s forearm lined the bookshelves, each tucked carefully in their prospective homes. 

Malfoy cleared his throat and added, “I’ve amassed the second largest library in Wizarding Britain in a year, and hopefully, within the next few, I can amass the largest in the world.” 

What a smug bastard, Harry thought. Draco Malfoy, the academic. He would never breathe this thought to Malfoy, but he privately thought that both Snape and Dumbledore would be proud of him, turning from teen bop Blood Supremist to reclusive Academic. 

At least Malfoy was trying to help people now, even if he was still a git.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Egg:
> 
> Ulktante's [Benefits of Old Laws](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/10691892/chapters/23678604) is one of my favorite fanfictions for their world building. I am in absolute love with her depiction of Tom Riddle and his way he takes his tea. It's now evolved into becoming my personal headcannon that both Voldemort and Harry take their tea the same way, which is unbeknownst to Harry, and it freaks those who know the fuck out. I'm gonna have fun teasing that out in the story. Check out their stories if you haven't ever. They do amazing work. 
> 
> Also, those strange weather occurrences mentioned? Those droughts actually occurred in the United Kingdom in 1976 and 1995-1998. I just thought it was too interesting to not weave into my story.


	4. The Stone Circle of Malfoy Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Malfoy discover a bit more than what they were expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited on 21/02/2021

Two hours after Harry had first sat in the carved wooden chair, he stood. His head was heavy with answers and even more questions, and his magic stretched, ready to pursue. Malfoy stood, waving his wand to cancel the silencing spell and then to spell the creases out of his clothes.

Together they made their way down in silence to the ground floor of Malfoy Manor. Harry’s magic felt the enchantments slip past him as he entered into the more family-orientated area of the home. The walls shone with a light silver and green embossed wallpaper, and the air surrounding seemed so light compared to Harry’s first misadventure to the Manor in 1998.

He paused to sense the difference in magic here. They bore the feeling of a strong cleaning, almost monthly cleaning, and the magic and air felt somehow newer. Malfoy was trying to keep something at bay here, something that slowly crept up the walls and tried to poison the Manor’s own magic. Harry’s hand hovered near the wall for a moment before he felt his magic pull the hand back. Something was hiding, and Malfoy, while he was obviously hunting the source, hadn’t found it yet.

Malfoy looked back at him with a slight twitch on his lips. Harry wanted to frown at him. The blond git was too observant. He never had other wizards notice his magic as fast as Malfoy had. 

“We’ll be going to the far side of the property,” Malfoy told Harry, leading him out the back of the manor and into the larger than life glasshouse and orangery attached to the rear of the manor. 

Harry’s mouth hung open briefly. He wasn’t an Herbology snob like Neville still was, but he could appreciate the time and effort and magical skill. He looked up at the hanging garden that was magicked high above. Absolutely breathtaking. It was so large that Harry could imagine the new section of the manor as a freestanding crystal palace of glass. Harry thought that Neville would die to see this.

Harry could tell this was a little gem in the beauty of Malfoy Manor. The magical plants blossomed and glowed in the warmer air inside the glasshouse. The garden was meticulous in the formal French style that he knew from Fleur and Bill’s own, but the Malfoy seemed to be so much wilder, much more dangerous than at first glance, taking ideas from all over the world to show off the grandeur of their incorporation of magic. 

In the middle of the garden, there was a small seating area, and Mrs. Malfoy and a pretty, petite brunette sat having a light lunch in the enclosed space. 

Mrs. Malfoy gave Harry a guarded smile before standing to face the two young men. The petite brunette stood silently beside and gave Malfoy a small smile that he freely returned to her. Harry knew that this was the unnamed fiancée.

“Mother, Astoria,” Malfoy said in greeting, “Auror Potter, you remember my mother, and this is my fiancée, Miss Astoria Greengrass.”

Harry smiled and nodded in greeting, but as he caught Mrs. Malfoy’s face, his thoughts mulled slightly over Malfoy’s new engagement. This must have been a new event to miss out in Mrs. Malfoy’s letters. 

Mrs. Malfoy’s relationship with Harry was always a little fraught. After being ordered by the Wizengamot to establish communication as a part of the terms of her parole, Mrs. Malfoy and Harry sent at least monthly letters between the two of them, which drove the Weasleys mad as Harry continued to respond to her letters. Even Hermione would try to point out that the Wizengamot only required Mrs. Malfoy to send a letter, but Harry saw how Andromeda would discreetly ask about her sister and didn’t feel like a bit of kindness to either Black sister truly hurt anyone. He was the Head of the House of Black; it was his job to actively listen to those that bore the family name. 

But letters were not the only interaction with the lady of the house. After four years of rare formal meetings at various barrister offices and the Ministry in accordance with the parole hearings, Harry had developed a deeper respect for Mrs. Malfoy, and as she leveled a cross look at her son, Harry realized that maybe she carried a tiny bit of respect for him in return. Narcissa Malfoy was always a bit keener and more devoted to family than power or glory than most other Pureblood women of a certain age. Perhaps, Harry thought that maybe it was a Black witch attribute because Andromeda was just as quick-witted and dangerous.

“Auror Chief Inspector Potter, how nice to see you,” Mrs. Malfoy said. She reached out her hand, and Harry kissed the back of it. Malfoy kissed the side of Miss Greengrass’s cheek, and then Harry nodded gently in response to her slight curtsey. Politeness was always a hallmark of these Pureblood women. 

“Ladies,” Harry returned, “A pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Malfoy, and to meet you, Miss Greengrass. Congratulations to you both on your engagement.” Harry thought it was a good thing the glasshouse was enclosed because Greengrass looked like a strong wind would knock her flat.

“Thank you,” she demurred, turning to her fiancé, and asked him if there was time for the two to join them for lunch.

Malfoy paused for a moment, looking over at Harry. He was about to answer when the door behind him slammed open. 

Harry’s magic scaled up his back, and he pivoted swiftly to face behind as his wand snapped into his hand, only to see Lucius Malfoy, looking very much like a mad man, with his cane tapping loudly as he made his way into the room. The older Malfoy leaned heavily on the cane as he walked, looking as though he was using it to propel him forward.

Harry looked the older man up and down as he came closer to the quartet. Lucius Malfoy still carried a twinge of that exhausted and haunted look that he carried after the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry could tell that Azkaban Prison, now devoid of most of the dementors on Mr. Malfoy’s second short tour, had not done him any favors, because he still moved with an angry purpose. 

As the older man wrenched himself to a stop within hitting distance of that cane, Lucius Malfoy tightly gripped the snake-topped cane. The steel band snapped around each wrist was a seamless reminder of Malfoy Senior’s ongoing punishment after his imprisonment. Harry was glad that Mr. Malfoy was bound magicless to the Manor’s Estate.

“Father, you remember Harry Potter, from Hogwarts,” Malfoy Junior said with a smirk. "He’s all grown up."

Harry barely schooled back an owl-eye stare at Malfoy. 

Merlin, Malfoy’s mouth still was a loose cannon ready to get him in trouble. There was a story here, Harry thought. A story that would probably make his arse go numb sitting in that poncy wooden chair if he was made to hear it all in one go.

Maybe there were other reasons that Mrs. Malfoy never wrote in depth about her husband in her letters to him. If her son and he were butting heads over Headship—Harry was interrupted in his thoughts by his magic picking at palm. 

“Auror Chief Inspector Potter,” Mrs. Malfoy tactfully inputted, “is a very busy man, Draco. I’m sure he doesn’t have time for lunch with us. Lucius—”

“Has no right to demean his Head of Family,” Mr. Malfoy said furiously, “but will remind the young Head that outsiders to the family, especially upstarting Half-Bloods, do not have a right to stand on our grounds. The Malfoys,” and Harry felt the derision, how far the family had fallen in Mr. Malfoy’s eyes with his son’s premature ascension, “own this land, and the Malfoy head and spouse are to care for this land.”

“And as the Head of Family,” Draco grounded out, “it is my decision on how to handle dangers to this family line that you and Grandfather—”

“We wouldn’t be in the current danger if you would choose less of a disappointment of a future spouse,” Mr. Malfoy interjected, and everything went to chaos.

Auror training kicked in at that moment, and Harry’s magic reacted to the angry, furious, and indigent magic swirling next him from the younger Malfoy. Draco Malfoy was pissed, and Harry honesty thought Malfoy was about to take a Muggle swing at his father. 

This was about to get ugly, and for once in Harry’s life, he was about to take up a wand at Draco Malfoy’s side. Malfoy’s grey eyes turned steel cold, and Harry could feel his magic’s tang swirling in the air.

“Lucius!” Mrs. Malfoy hissed as Malfoy grounded out in anger, “Father, that is enough!”

And like that, the moment of anger fizzled like a deflating balloon. 

Lucius Malfoy, who once seemed so tall to Harry, tried to tower over his taller son and then shrunk back on himself. Anger and bitterness colored his face, and his frown was bowed and warped. He took an unsteady step back, and with a sneer at Harry, Malfoy fixed his stare at his son, silently daring him to say something more.

“I’ve said what was needed to say,” Mr. Malfoy spat out, “Good luck, Draco, with teaching this Ministry Mudblood how to destroy almost a thousand years of legacy.” 

He shot Harry another anger-filled glare, and the older man turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaning heavily on his cane. He had a dark look on his face.

No one in the room spoke, and Harry could feel Malfoy’s anger still swirling. There was a line drawn here, and Draco Malfoy was on the opposite side as his father. He wondered how Narcissa Malfoy continued to straddle the line of love for her husband and love for her son. 

Harry spared a glance at Greengrass. Astoria, his mind supplied. She was a wisp of a girl compared to her older blonde sister, the pretty Slytherin girl who he took his O.W.L.s with, but he couldn’t remember her name. Miss Greengrass looked down at her shaking hands.

Lucius Malfoy was still a right bastard and a bully to a barely twenty year old woman. Harry always knew he was a pathetic tosser.

“I’m sorry, Draco. You know your father. He has to have the last word,” Mrs. Malfoy placated. 

Harry assumed she did that often now. 

Mrs. Malfoy turned to the smaller woman and continued, “Astoria, please, sit. I apologize for my husband. He’s having a poor morning. Let’s continue lunch.”

Harry looked at the closed off look that Miss Greengrass had, and Harry realized that neither parent thought Miss Greengrass was good enough for Malfoy. 

He didn’t know if it was truly a kindness that Mrs. Malfoy hid it better or not. Poor girl, he thought. Malfoy must really love her to marry her against his parent’s wishes.

Harry watched as a silent outsider as Malfoy murmured an apology to Miss Greengrass as he gently pressed a parting kiss on her cheek. He turned to his mother and kissed hers. Harry nodded to the both of them as he followed Malfoy out.

They walked into the green and Apparated across the field.

Malfoy came to a stop near a hedge line. He turned towards Harry but didn’t say anything to him, and Harry watched on as Malfoy occluded, pulling back the anger away with his magic. The blond man breathed gently in and out, taking deeper breaths each time, lengthening his holding of breaths and exhales, until he could count down, four, three, two, and one. 

Textbook occluding from someone who had actual resources from a reputable text. Malfoy had probably digested Maxwell Barnett’s book in order to find success like that. Harry still struggled with his Occlumency at times, but he was loads better than what he could do at fifteen. At least Harry could do the minimal basics now. 

But even after a minute or two, Malfoy’s magic was still swirling. Finally, it stilled, but Malfoy still looked like wanted to haul back and punch his father in his face. 

He cleared his throat, and Malfoy’s grey eyes flicked over to him. After a few moments of silence, Harry wondered if he was about to get a stinging hex to the face. 

“You okay, Malfoy?” Harry asked. 

Breathing exercises and mantras were the key to the basis of Occlumency shields, but as he had learned through therapy, when someone close betrayed a trust, it was harder to refocus on that shield. Anger and magic was a devastating combination.

Malfoy nodded but didn’t answer. He apparently didn’t trust his tongue to lash out at the wrong person. He took in a deep, final shuddering breath and shook out his arms to try to physically dispel the emotion. 

He stuck out his hand to Harry, and Harry stared down momentarily at the extended pale hand.

“I always knew I would one day get you to take my hand, Potter.” Malfoy joked lightly. “You need to be touching me to pass the enchantments behind me. The Head of the Family leads into the circles.” He explained further.

Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed Malfoy’s hand. 

Malfoy gave it a jaunty little squeeze in return, and he pulled Harry behind him, stepping through the greenery. The protecting branches pushed them back in its assessment then sucked them forward. 

The leaves shimmered over Harry’s body, and Harry saw the hedge and Stone Circle of the Malfoy Manor for the first time.

It was in all ways, exhilarating beyond words, like flying on a broomstick for the very first time. Like kissing Ginny for the first time. 

For a moment, Harry forgot to breathe and took a gasp of breath to catch up in his excitement.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Malfoy asked, letting go of Harry’s hand. 

Malfoy began to walk towards the Standing Stones, leaving Harry behind. 

The cool air of Wiltshire seemed to hold a bit of anticipation, like spring had come early, that magic was alive here. 

Harry felt his magic bound in excitement, rolling down his shoulders and propelling his legs forward. He stepped forward in almost a bound, down into the grass and over towards the first of the tall, meticulously hewn stone structures. 

The Standing Stones were at least three times as tall as Harry, and probably even wider as he was tall. As he stood near the first set, he noticed that there was another taller set inside the first circle of stones. The field was large, spreading out over at least an acre of open land. The soft grass underneath his feet was spotted with little dandelions that only stood an inch over the grass. 

Without a second thought, Harry’s magic reached out beyond the bounds of his body, like it had done in the weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was tentative, explorative like a child. Harry’s magic slipped over the stones, and Harry felt the cool magic of the ritual site rush into him like jumping into a cold mountain stream.

They explored the large circles, passing under the gateways created. Malfoy explained that the tall stones were called sarsens, and they were a type of sandstone, but the smaller blue bluestones were a type of igneous rock. Harry nodded happily at the blond man, not really caring about the stones make-up, but he appreciated it all the same. 

Why was Malfoy explaining stuff used to bother him? And why did Malfoy worry about the magic here? The magic seemed whole and happy which confused Harry momentarily, but when too caught up in the magic, the confusion slipped away. 

Harry was here now with Malfoy, and the magic was happy. He was happy too. 

Harry kept coming back to the stones. 

They were so beautiful. Running his hand over one of the stones, Harry was struck again with the feeling that everything would be okay in the end. 

Harry felt the magic surrounding him, and he smiled. 

A tap on his shoulder tightened gently, like a friend’s arm over his shoulder. Harry turned to look at the shimmer of magic behind him. The tall green hedges that hid the circles glistened like dark jade, hiding the stones yet filtering the magic out. The stones gleamed with power in the sunlight, and Harry felt the wind pick up a moment before his magic forced him to turn to look around the field more.

Harry thought it was better than Malfoy had described in his office. The two stone circles stood tall, and Harry passed under one of the stone pillars. Behind him, Malfoy looked on in wonder at stones and to the center of the circles were a large stone altar lay. Harry let out a laugh, feeling the happiness enter his lungs and squeeze his body like the gasp of fresh air after pushing off on a broomstick.

This was perhaps the oldest magic that Harry had ever felt in his life, and it was completely mesmerizing.

A ball of light rose from the grass in front of Harry, twisting and swaying and twirling. Harry watched as it rose above his head, maybe just beyond his fingertips if he stretched, and floated gently towards the altar. The magic faded and like a light being dimmed, the ball of light soaked away into the nothingness as it touched the grey stone altar.

“Malfoy,” Harry asked, pulling the blonde’s attention back to him, “the Ritual Stones, how long have they been standing?”

“We assume Neolithic, Potter. This is old magic, here, and it’s been Merlin Blessed himself. I know that it’s older than Armand Malfoy establishing the Malfoy family in the eleven-hundreds from France to England, and the older the magic....”

“The more dangerous.” Harry finished. “Let’s see it all then, and we can determine the best course of action here.” 

Auror training kicked in, and Harry drew back his magic to take all the information to his best ability. The air hummed in some sort of approval around them.

Harry stood across the altar from Malfoy. The air danced, and Harry felt his face split in a wide grin. Malfoy also marveled at the magic. 

Another light appeared again and weaved around them before disappearing.

“It wasn’t like this when I came alone,” Malfoy whispered. “It seemed cautious and afraid. The magic is happy we’re here.”

Harry turned and tried to sense anything that Malfoy had warned about. 

The magic here was kind and happy, and Harry could even say joyous. Lights flickered and sparkled and disappeared, and Harry now twenty-two years old felt like a child caught in his wonderment where nothing, not even seeing Hogwarts for the first time compared to this.

“This level of sentience... “ Harry wondered, “I didn’t see magic like this even at Hogwarts.”

Malfoy hummed in agreement. “There are some levels of that magic in _Ministère des Affaires Magiques_ and at Beauxbatons, but France has layers upon layers of Celtic magics which are still practiced openly. Hogwarts stopped teaching ritual magics in the sixteen hundreds after a couple of purebloods decided to use a fertility ritual to void a marriage contract.”

“How scandalous,” Harry laughed, and Malfoy laughed alongside him. 

Harry blinked at Malfoy for a moment before smiling. 

The magic swirled and blinked like fireflies around them. Harry sat down on one of the laying stones. The coolness of the power seeped into his Auror breeches. Malfoy stood next to him, and they looked around the circles.

“What should I do?” Harry asked.

Malfoy smiled that mocking smile of his, but at that moment to Harry, it didn’t carry the same weight that it had when they were fifteen.

A sliver of a tooth jutted out, and Malfoy let out a huffing laugh. “Potter, your magic has already jumped around like a child. Just don't try to cast any spells because it won’t have the power to form the actual spell. Magic in a circle must have a duality to it. You need at least two people, so you and I are going to have to work together. We will both cast. I will push my magic into you, then you push it back into me with yours, and I’ll ignite the spell. Like throwing a Quaffle long, back and forth.”

Harry nodded. He looked over the circles. Suddenly, he realized something.

“You know, it’s a little strange.” Harry said.

One of Malfoy’s eyebrows raised. “What’s strange, Potter?”

“This circle. It looks like all the drawings of Stonehenge, like how my Muggle primary teacher said it was supposed to look. There’s no missing or upset stones.”

At this Malfoy did laugh and hard, doubling over and leaning on one of the standing stones.

“Potter, oh Merlin, Potter,” Malfoy laughed. “We’re in Wiltshire. Potter, look around. This is Stonehenge. My ancestors made a copy to confuse the Muggles before the Statute of Secrecy was invoked. The Malfoys charmed this small area to be Muggle proof, but too many of them knew about the circles, so we copied the rocks and moved them, and the rest is history!”

Harry’s mouth dropped, and he let out a wild laugh. “Malfoy, this is the most ridiculous day of my life,” he said with a smile.

Malfoy just grinned in return. “So, any ideas, or should I just send Father to an early grave by inviting Granger to the property?”

Malfoy sat next to Harry on the laying Ritual Stone. Harry watched the glow against Malfoy’s skin. Harry’s magic tingled at his hands, and Harry felt it go down, down, trailing down his leg and pool at his feet. It was gone, back to the earth.

“Magic given to the land seeps further into the land, beyond the Manor, right? Is there a way to track it, to see where the magic goes?”

Malfoy frowned slightly.

“I’ve never wondered where. I just knew that the Manor and my Family Magic tied the land.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Wizards and their obvious logic falls, Harry fondly thought. All that knowledge of the natural world beyond that any muggle could comprehend, but if it wasn’t an obvious problem in their face, it was never questioned.

And why would wizards question further when they knew that magic was there? 

Harry’s magic bubbled in his mind, and he shook his head to clear the sensation away. “The magic has to go somewhere, it would just bubble here. Watch, it pools here, but it flows away.” Harry paused, “I could follow a line.”

They watched as one after the other, little lights of magic lifted and fell gently into the ground, and with wonder, the light pulsed and swirled under the earth before moving out past the tall row of the green hedge, out of sight. 

“Oh!” Harry exclaimed, “Do wizards believe in ley lines?” 

Harry could remember Dudley being allowed to visit Stonehenge in primary school. Harry wasn’t allowed to go on the school trip, but Harry remembered a spark of a memory of Dudley blithering on about Stonehenge and Avebury before Aunt Petunia took away the little book on magical energies and ley lines and actually throwing it in the bin. Aunt Petunia never threw away Dudley’s stuff.

Malfoy blinked, caught in confusion over the term. “Ley lines?” He asked. 

Harry laughed at the taller man and at himself for suggesting it. Wizards never even considered the Muggle world for explanations. Harry understood the mindset better after living fully in the Wizarding World now himself. Muggles never got to see the whole picture. That being said, Wizards themselves hardly ever did either, but at least they could comprehend that there always were multiple realities that could be layered and observed. 

“Some muggles have this strange belief that there are these straight alignments between historical landmarks all across the country, that it’s places where mysterious energies emerge. The muggles that believe it are sometimes seen as crazy, and it’s been disproven by muggle means so many times, but I wonder if there’s a magical explanation.” Harry explained out loud, and Malfoy looked down at him with an intrigued look.

The taller man rubbed his chin in speculation. “Historically, people didn’t move in straight lines,” Malfoy said, frowning in thought.

“It’s a legend, Malfoy,” explained Harry. “Muggles just trying to explain their world.”

“Potter,” Malfoy drawled. This was obviously Malfoy-speak for “Stop Talking,” Harry just knew it. “You have my attention. This might be muggle, but let’s see if there’s a wizarding counterpart. Find me some books on ley lines, and we can start there.”

They stayed watching the magic for a few more minutes, each deep in thought. 

Harry couldn’t help but think of the last legend that touched him. Teddy didn’t like “The Tale of Three Brothers,” but instead he enjoyed “Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump.” Harry thought there were such things as small blessings.

Would this touch him as deeply?

“Are you ready?”

Harry looked up, momentarily confused. 

Malfoy gestured at the Stones, and Harry blushed.

“Build your magic. Focus on the goal. We’ll go on my signal.” Malfoy said, turning towards the Stones. He pulled his hair back and tied it quickly with a ribbon to keep it out of his face. 

Malfoy’s silver eyes glowed molten. Harry knew he wanted answers, and Merlin, Harry wanted to know now. 

What was here hiding under this joy?

Harry nodded, and with that, Harry stood and let his magic reach out beyond what he usually kept it at. 

It would be like catching a Quaffle across the field, and then he would lob it back to Malfoy, just like he explained He turned with Malfoy, and they both stepped quickly towards the center of the circle, their magic pushing their heels faster.

Malfoy leveled his wand, and Harry felt Malfoy's magic surge and ebb and surge again towards him. 

Catch the Quaffle. 

Harry felt his magic reach instinctively grab hold before lobbing back into Malfoy’s magic. He felt fire, and Harry almost faltered. 

He reached out with one arm, and Malfoy grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him down onto his knees.

Throw it back.

Malfoy fell, taller still onto one knee. 

The grip on Harry’s shoulder tightened, and the circuit between the two surged. He heard Malfoy’s magic in his ears, and he knew what was next.

 _“Appare Vestigium!”_ Harry cried, feeling the wet soil begin to cool his knees. Malfoy’s hand tightened again on his shoulder.

From Malfoy’s hawthorn wand, gold magic flew onto the ground and bounced and bounced and bounced. 

The trickle of magic shaped and formed, elongating into a pair of golden steps. Three full steps forward, and another pair formed and followed behind the first. The two sets circled the ceremony stone.

And as Harry and Malfoy stepped toward them, the tall golden, snake-like spectre of Voldemort appeared, and behind him, at his side was Bellatrix Lestrange. They were alone and bare of their wands and any other vestments.

Harry swallowed and was struck breathless for a new, horrible reason. The feeling of happiness and joy was immediately sucked away.

The fear and cautiousness spiked, and Harry could feel fear as if a Dementor had appeared before him. 

Harry’s mind was transported instantly to the disastrous ending of the Triwizard Tournament. Voldemort looked almost the same as he did the day of the graveyard, the day of Cedric’s murder.

Under his and Malfoy’s spell, the Dark Lord glowed gold, his white skin now translucent and honey-coloured. Bellatrix’s head full of long curls covered the barest amount, covering her breasts but nothing else. Harry wished she had grown it out even longer.

“No,” Harry heard Draco whisper in shock, and Harry felt his head get lighter as the ghostly spectres of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange sliced their arms and offered their own blood to the stones.

There had been a ritual.

Voldemort tossed Bellatrix onto the stone and crawled on top of her, smearing his blood across Bellatrix’s stomach in a runic pattern, and Bellatrix smeared hers, marking across Voldemort’s forehead and cheekbones before reaching even further south on Voldemort’s body to smear blood. 

She smiled up at the Dark Lord and went to kiss him. He smiled cruelly at her and pushed her face into stone, forcing her to roll onto her stomach. 

Bellatrix rolled to her front on ritual stone, and Voldemort climbed behind her, pushing her hair away and drawing with blood across her back before roughly pushing in and moving behind her. 

Bellatrix visibly gasped and opened her mouth in a long but mercifully soundless moan. They moved together, thrusting and pulling. Voldemort moved and pushed, taking his hand and pressing roughly in the middle of Bellatrix’s prone back, pushing her chest downward and her rear up. 

Still watching in horror, Harry lost control of the magic, and the gold spectres flittered before splashing like water droplets out of existence.

Malfoy, still staring at the stones in revulsion and horror, fell hard against Harry’s shoulder. The jolt of sensory pain was enough to freeze the two for a few minutes longer. The stones were just as silent as Harry and Malfoy.

Then, Harry heard a gurgle. 

He turned his head and saw Malfoy, bent over dry-heaving and throwing up. Harry wildly thought it was a bit of luck that Malfoy had pulled his hair back before starting this mess. 

Harry felt the acid burn and bubble up his throat, and then, he too was even lower to the ground, both knees and hands pressed into the cold grass throwing up his breakfast and tea.

After a while of horror and dry-heaving and silence, Harry and Malfoy sat back next to each other, still staring at the main ceremony stone.

Unsurprisingly, Malfoy was the first to speak.

“How good is your Obliviate, Potter?”

Harry let out a snorting huff of a laugh that was too painful to fully leave his throat. “Merlin...” he groaned. 

His throat ached, and his stomach rolled. This was not how he imagined his day going, throwing up in a field next to Draco bloody Malfoy after watching two of Britain’s top five boggarts ritually fuck.

“Malfoy, please tell me that wasn’t what I thought it was,” Harry begged. He wiped a trail of spit off his chin.

Malfoy ran his hand through his blond hair twice, a nervous tick that Harry remembered him doing as a teenager. He pulled his hair out of the tie and scoffed. He turned and fixed Harry with a wild glare. 

“A fertility ritual? Well, you’d be wrong because that’s exactly how you start one,” Malfoy replied a bit too hysterically. 

Harry flopped backwards away from their sick. Harry’s magic lulled him backwards, easing his mind to quiet like a gentle lapping of waves. He had to think. He needed to get ahead of this because if he didn’t this was going to be trouble beyond imagination for his future. 

A fertility ritual meant a child. Voldemort fathered a child with Bellatrix. Harry’s stomach rolled.

“Malfoy, I don’t think I have to remind you that part of your probation and parole was renouncing Voldemort and aiding any DMLE member in preventing resurgence of his ideology. Telling any known Sympathizer would be considered reneging.” Harry said in a detached tone. 

His magic sloshed down his sides. Harry stared up into the sky as an orb of light floated down and hover on top of his right hand as if trying to comfort him from what he saw.

“Oh no, I remember,” the blond tittered manically, “I am happy to not incite a bloodbath by not talking about the Dark Lord’s bastard with my aunt.”

“Merlin,” Harry cursed again. He rubbed his eyes. Malfoy’s mouth is going to kill him one of these days.

Malfoy was shaking as he stood. With his eyes wild, he turned to Harry.

“Potter. I have to,” was the only warning before Malfoy pushed into Harry’s magic with his own, and to Harry’s shock, his magic followed and threw the magic back. Their wands ignited with an obliteration charm followed by a purification fire that burned white, circling them and extinguished with a puff.

A white light emerged from the central stone before floating high and dissolving, and Harry felt the magic cleansed.

“Merlin,” Harry cursed a third time. Malfoy nodded in blessed silence.

He would be upping that meeting with Kingsley to that afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> Lucius Malfoy's language is a call back to HBP Chapter 10 (The House of Gaunt).
> 
> The Tracking Charm (Appare Vestigium) appears in the second Fantastic Beasts film, and I always enjoyed the visual the spell created.


	5. The Office of the Minister of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry makes a plan to find the child, and Malfoy is determined to help Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited on 23/02/2021
> 
> Warning: Graphic Medical Terminology Used (very short/nondescriptive)

As Malfoy and Harry stumbled out into the far field of the Malfoy estate, Harry was momentarily struck dumb as to how his post-war life had led up this moment. He had just watched the man who tried seven times to murder him before he turned eighteen fuck the mad woman who murdered his godfather on a blood-covered stone altar. 

How in Merlin’s name was he supposed to address this in therapy? 

Harry watched detachedly as Malfoy opened the security charms of the Manor. 

Reaching out, Malfoy gripped Harry’s shoulder, and Harry felt the stress and anger in the taller man’s hold. It was like a manticore’s bite, unyielding and powerful. 

Harry also chose not to mention the obvious faux pas of Side-Alonging without permission, but after what they just witnessed, getting away from the Stone Circle was all Harry wanted to do.

They landed in Malfoy’s office. 

Harry’s magic wrapped around the two of them in shock of the forceful apparition and squeezed slightly. Malfoy pushed Harry back towards the sitting area near the fireplace and waved his wand and chanted the various security spells to reseal the manor.

“Get your magic off of me, Potter,” Malfoy demanded as he manhandled Harry back into the wooden chair. Harry willingly moved, still feeling a bit too detached to fully care what was going on around him. 

A House Elf appeared into existence, set down another tea set, and disappeared without a glance at either man.

Harry stared dazedly as Malfoy pushed a hot cup of tea that had an excessive amount of sugar inside into Harry’s hands. 

Harry looked down at the cup. The steam twisted slightly, and Harry’s magic lifted a spoon to gently swirl the remaining tea and sugar together. He took a burning gulp down and swore under his breath at the pain.

Harry then looked up and stared as Malfoy moved around the room, grabbing books from the warded shelves and call-carding the house elves who brought larger, thicker, older tomes. He dove into one of the old books and looked into another to cross-reference, again and again. 

Harry blinked slowly. 

He hadn’t seen that type of fervour around books in years since Hermione told him that she’d never do research for Harry again. 

Malfoy swore loudly slammed an old book shut, jarring Harry from his thoughts.

Harry downed the rest of the cup and looked back down at it. The small granules of sugar soaked in the light brown tea tannins. Distant future, danger. Near future, enemy, friend. Self, strife. A large crystal, dagger, eagle, and apple.

Right. Harry needed to think. The shock of actually seeing Voldemort again was wearing off, and Harry felt that old, familiar anger burn through him. It wasn’t Malfoy’s fault, Harry reminded himself, but Merlin, seeing Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort again blossomed an anger-fueled headache.

“Malfoy, silence the room.” Harry commanded.

Malfoy stilled, and he glanced at the closed door. He jabbed with his wand, and Harry felt the magic sizzle and seal the room off.

Harry turned his head and stared at the fire in the hearth. The fire flickered pleasantly in the hearth, warming Harry from the chill that was creeping into his very being. 

What a complete and utter nightmare. Kingsley was going to lose his wand when Harry brought this to him. 

Harry rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning or the day before, so the stubble felt soothing against his hand. His magic pulled and ebbed across his shoulders, and Harry found himself wondering what Dumbledore would have done in regards of Voldemort’s sex ritual.

What would Dumbledore have done? 

Harry’s breath caught, and Harry was lost in memories of his own frustrations with how Dumbledore addressed childcare. He had been left with the Dursleys. Who would this child be left with? 

In an orphanage in Muggle London, Dumbledore had once ignored a Wizarding child’s struggles. Harry hadn’t realized it at sixteen, but at twenty-two, he did realize that Dumbledore did know at least what family Tom Riddle belonged to the moment he admitted that he was a Parseltongue. Maybe there even could have been a happier beginning for Tom Riddle the Half-blood, but it was far too late to ever really know now. 

Could Harry sentence a child to the same fate as their father?

Could he stand by and watch as a Magical child be moved to foster home after foster home? Hermione had tried to get her and Ron certified last year as a foster parent, but her inability to allow for a full assessment of her and Ron’s home in Devon disqualified her. It hadn't helped the situation when George had Flooed over in the middle of the home tour. 

Harry shook his head. It really didn’t matter what Dumbledore would have done. How would have done it?

Harry paused, and he rolled the empty cup between his hands. 

He thought back to seeing the gritty and disgusting walls of Grimmauld Place when he was fifteen and so full of anger. Dumbledore would have used the most unsavory dredges of society to network for him. The poor souls who had peaked during their years at Hogwarts. The ones whose life experiences cut them down even before their lives truly began and chose never to hope for more for themselves than what they thought they deserved. Those people would have looked at Dumbledore and his benevolence. 

Even after Dumbledore’s death, Harry had been one of those people before the Weasleys and Kingsley and Andromeda dragged him away and gave him hope for more in life.

But Harry had little use for Dumbledore’s version of benevolence now. 

Harry’s altruism towards unknown witches and wizards was fairly damaged after knowing Mundungus Fletcher as a teenager. The ramifications of his actions had dealt the Order some of their most devastating blows. 

Outside of his family, Harry had a very difficult time asking others to help him, and Harry knew immediately that he would have to step outside of the normal streams of search to find this child. He would not ask any of Weasleys or Andromeda for help. Ron was finally sleeping through the night again, and Hermione was finally getting her chance to focus on her own career. He wouldn’t be so selfish to pull them back into worrying about events from the war. 

Harry would need a sturdy stock to search for this child. 

An idea sparked. Harry’s version of benevolence had a limit, and while Dumbledore recruited those that he could use, Harry recruited those no one else would. There was no Being that walked this world that didn’t at some level want some acceptance for what they were, and in the years during his Auror training, Harry had learned to accept more than what he ever thought he could. 

Harry would go to the Vampires. They had more to gain with secrets, and Harry’s blind eye to their hunting pursuits quickly gained favor with the small group. 

He knew that Kingsley would hate this, but Harry could see no other way than to involve someone who could easily slip through the Darker edges of Wizarding society and begin to find the child. 

Harry could trust that Vampires could find the child. Their use of magic was always ritual based, and they were ones most sensitive to the ritual nuances lost on humans. Voldemort and Bellatrix’s ritual would have made waves across England. Harry would go to the London Coterie first. If it was necessary, he’d go to Manchester or even to Ireland to seek out other Living Dead. 

Harry had no idea if the child would survive the manhunt for it, but he would be damned if Voldemort’s child would be used to promote his fascism and ideals again. Kingsley would have to be pulled in, and he would despise Harry’s suggestion. 

Harry’s magic rushed around his ears. “Potter,” he heard Malfoy say, but Harry’s thoughts were on what he needed to do next. 

Harry didn’t say anything but stood, setting the tea cup on the table. 

He pulled out a counterfeit gold galleon out of his vest. He hadn’t had to use this thing since that failed kidnapping. Different than the ones Hermione had created for the DA back when they were in Hogwarts, this coin could message a specified recipient, not unlike a Muggle pager. It took longer for the message to weave through the Arithmancy sequence, but it was safer to use in a potential mixed company than a Patronus message. 

He twisted the face on the back of the galleon to Kingsley’s broader profile.

Pulling out his wand out of the chest holster, Harry tapped the galleon, sending a message to Kingsley.

_“Consult complete. Problems emerged. Free your schedule. Head will be joining us. Will arrive in style.”_

Malfoy cleared his throat, and Harry looked over to the blonde man standing behind his desk.

“Kingsley will be in touch soon.” He said. 

“Obviously,” Malfoy muttered. He flicked two of the old tomes shut with a wave of his wand. 

The two wizards stared at each other, both feeling adrift in the knowledge of a horror neither wanted to face.

Harry cleared his throat. They needed to know when this child was born, and then, Harry would begin pulling the proverbial tangled knot of this mess apart. 

“We need a timeline on when the child could be born,” he said. 

Malfoy nodded. “Well, we know that by May 1998, the hydrological drought ended and the Dark Lord was finally defeated. Bellatrix died, so at the maximum, the kid is five.” Malfoy flicked his wand again, and a sheet of parchment rose from a drawer in the desk. It landed in front of Malfoy. 

Harry caught himself from voicing his confusion a moment before remembering the morning’s conversation. “Right. The weather,” he mumbled. “Add June 1995 to the list for the absolute beginning.”

Malfoy scribbled notes down on the parchment. “I assume the finale of the Triwizard’s Tournament?” He asked gently. 

They needed to sound out any possible turn. Dragon liver was costly and restricted to obtain but was required for strong Healing Potions to combat long term exposure to Dementors. Voldemort would need them in batches to prepare for his war. Potions ingredients had procurement contacts who had names. Harry wanted names. 

Harry pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “Yes, and add in Bellatrix’s timeline starting with the Azkaban Escape. Voldemort would have had six months to stockpile ingredients for potions and contacts.”

Malfoy frowned. “So, sometimes in January 1996, which would be too soon to start a gestation . Bellatrix had severe nutritional deficiencies. It would have taken at least three moon cycles to heal the minimum amount of damage Azkaban caused. I know she was taking them when…” He trailed off, and Harry noticed a pink flush stretch down Malfoy’s cheeks and neck. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. Malfoy was embarrassed about his involvement in the war. The arse-wipe should be, Harry crossly thought. 

“After the Astronomy Tower, when you left with Snape at the end of the sixth year.”

Malfoy nodded. “Bellatrix was quite facetious about her general health,” he explained. “She restarted the draught cycle twice before finally finishing the whole course, and I’m sure it was at Uncle Rodolphus’s wand point.” Malfoy frowned, and Harry was sure he was thinking about the infidelity aspect with what they had just seen. “She would not have the established body fat needed for easy fertility.”

Harry cleared his throat to draw Malfoy out of his thoughts. 

“The timeline just got shorter. We can write in a tentative start of 1997 then. She was there when Voldemort attacked the convoy taking me from my Aunt’s, so that’d be late July, right before my birthday. And in April 1998, when the Snatchers finally got ahold of Ron, Hermione, and me. Hermione stole some of her hair and used it in a Polyjuice Potion that—”

“Wait,” Malfoy interjected, stopping Harry’s timeline review. He tapped the quill on the side of the glass inkwell. “Did Granger say anything about bleeding or spotting vaginally? Normal menses are not replicated in Polyjuice.”

“Err, um,” Harry blushed at Malfoy’s use of terminology. He thought back to the nightmare of leaving the damn manor the first time around. “No, no, she never said anything about blood. All she said that the heels were hard to get used to, but wait, what blood?”

“Potter, the lochia after birth, women bleed after giving birth for a few weeks.”

“Wait, what?” Harry froze, and Harry felt his face flame red. “That’s a thing? I—”

“You’re not studying medicine in your spare time, Potter, but this does help us quite a bit. Polyjuice would have taken on effects on the body. If my aunt had given birth recently, there would have been a significant blood flow, and if it was earlier, then spotting would be a normal after effect,” Malfoy lectured. “Granger reported neither, so it’s probably safe to assume Granger would realize something was wrong and reported the bleeding earlier. My aunt did not give birth in April and most likely not in March either. We have a timeline.” 

Malfoy scribbled another note down. He paused, and he set down the quill. “Mother would have told me if Bellatrix had a baby, if she was pregnant.” He looked troubled.

“Do you think she knew?” Harry’s magic trembled. The words tumbled out of his mouth. “Do you think she remembers?”

Malfoy cursed and looked down at the parchment like it could give him the answers they desperately needed. “I don’t even know if I remember.”

Harry thought silently. Counting back the months, Harry wondered if Malfoy would even notice even if Bellatrix had been around him. 

“You would have gone back to school in September, and we saw each other around Easter. She wasn’t pregnant then when, well...” Harry trailed off. When Draco lied to his aunt for Harry, when Harry overpowered Draco for his wand, when the Elder Wand fell to him.

“I didn’t go home that Yule either. Mother forbade it. Now I think I know why,” Malfoy said. He picked up the quill and jotted more notes down.

“The Dark Lord,” he paused, “he was looking for immortality.” He said quietly.

Harry’s heart almost stopped. Honesty for honesty, he reminded himself. He’d win Malfoy’s help faster.

“He was. I destroyed his chances in the months that Snatchers searched for me.”

Malfoy paused and looked at Harry. He looked thoughtful for a moment, staring at the white line that remained of the lightning bolt scar. 

“That’s how you knew you that it wasn’t truly the Dark Lord,” he murmured, deep in thought.

Harry nodded. The silence stretched between them for a moment, but Draco continued on.

“Perhaps he wanted to increase his success in living forever. In our world, there is a certain type of immortality that passes between parent and child,” he said gently.

Harry’s magic ached like his very being was wrench. 

Harry paced towards the grand window. 

Spring’s first buds of new life sprung in the grass and fields and hedges of Malfoy Manor. New life was created in the magic that pooled in the soil and earth of the fields, in the stones of the Standing Stones in the far field.

In his mind’s eye, he could see time rolling backwards. 

The sky grew darker, ominous over the call of darker magics. 

Voldemort had brokered a pact with the Dementors, sucking the life and magic from the grounds. He could see their cloaked faces, hovering over the land. The abomination of magics gurgled greedily as life became unbalanced. Their unholy presence would have outstripped the magic need for ritual in the Standing Stones. 

There was always a balance, always a give and a take. 

Voldemort took, Voldemort gave, and Voldemort betrayed. 

From the second floor, Harry could see the narcissus flowers tremble and die and regrow, now weak and wither. He had sent the child away from its parents. A betrayal so deep that the land felt it and remembered it.

Voldemort had poisoned the land, but it was healing slowly on its own. Blood avenged by blood. Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange were dead, and the magic breathed better: Death for a boon mistreated. Harry felt it and knew it immediately.

Voldemort had sent that child away, and the ritual participants paid the price. Voldemort was so displeased, but why was this uncovered now? A light gleamed in the distance, pushing Harry back, and Harry saw.

Draco Malfoy had picked up the pieces of his crumbling home and the broken magics, pouring his own magic back into the manor, strengthening and communing with the magic of his land deeper than his father and maybe even his grandfather ever had. Malfoy Manor was his, not Voldemort’s. 

Suddenly, it was no wonder to Harry that Wizarding Law could not strip this land from the Malfoy Family. It was the magic of the land and the seat of power that those of Malfoy’s ancestry had honed over the centuries.

Harry’s magic swirled, and Harry could feel Malfoy’s eyes on him. 

Clear your mind. 

Focus on the now. 

Unwind the magic, come back, Harry felt the magics swirl around him, and they ebb away, flowing slowly back. 

Like a time-turner sending a user back in time, Harry returned to the present, to Malfoy’s office where he had always been.

Malfoy’s quick intake of breath alerted Harry that this time his ability had been discovered.

“What has the war made you?” Malfoy breathed, asking in wonder.

Harry’s cheeks colored slightly, and he turned towards Malfoy. “Like I said before, Malfoy, I always had the power and luck to force success. Now, the magic comes, and I feel it deeply.”

“You have a talent in Divination.”

“Divination as a whole is a wooly subject at best.” Harry replied tartly, turning back to look through the window.

Malfoy scoffed. “Don’t downplay your talent. Your magic is your greatest defender. You manifested in Divination, didn’t you?”

Harry paused. For a year now, Harry and Neville had worked together as full-time Auror partners, and Neville hadn’t even noticed his daydreams. But Draco Malfoy had noticed within a day? Neville was sensitive to magic as well, but for Malfoy to notice first?

“I never wanted to believe it, but yes, my trauma of war has manifested into a type of Divination for me. I see signs to warn me of dangers, handy as Auror, but I try not to dig further into. It’s your actions which determine your future, and I never want to drag myself in another self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Malfoy let out a shocked huff of a laugh. He stepped around the desk and stood beside Harry to look out the window. “That was oneiromancy,” said Malfoy. “Your magic walked in a daydream, and you followed it.”

“You see more now too,” Harry replied in defense. “Not even my partner has realized my daydreams aren’t normal.”

Malfoy threw back his head and laughed. “Psh. You’ve always had my attention, Potter, but I’m glad your magic just didn’t manifest into paranoia. We’d be calling you Mad-Eye behind your back.” Malfoy quipped but smiled gently. He swished his wand, and Harry saw the parchment tremble on the desk and begin to rise.

The parchment floated over to Malfoy’s hand. 

At the top, Malfoy had outlined Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestranges individual timelines, known potion cycles, and tentative timeline for the gestation of a child created by fertility magic.

The coin warmed in Harry’s hand. A thin script of cursive appeared like it was being freshly written along the edge of the gold coin. 

_"Come now."_ It simply read.

Harry cleared his throat. “Would you be willing to Side-Along with me to London?” He asked Malfoy. Harry knew that Kingsley would want to hear everything from Malfoy’s own mouth if he was going to move this new case fully to Harry’s sole purview.

“I take it we’re not going through the visitor entrance?” Malfoy asked in a drawl. He crossed his arms in visible discomfort.

In response, Harry looked at the window, focusing on Malfoy’s reflection in the glass. While Harry hardly ever Side-Along Apparated with other adults anymore, the jump from Wiltshire to London would be nothing to him even with a passenger. 

The narcissus flowers gently swayed in the breeze. 

His magic turned, and Harry saw other flowers grow, reach their zenith, and wither and die. White asphodel grew tall on their stalks, and red poppies trembled and reached to the sky, their black eyes tracing the sun and wind. Harry turned and saw that Malfoy was staring at him again. The tall blond didn’t say anything. He didn't have to because Harry knew that the taller man knew what had just happened.

Malfoy blinked. His arms fell to his sides. 

“No, this is a more delicate operation. I’ll be taking you straight into the Minister’s office,” Harry replied.

“The Anti-Disapparation and Anti-Apparation jinxes?”

“Like I said, the magic comes, and I feel it deeply.” Harry replied, echoing what now could be called the largest post war change in his life.

Malfoy nodded and motioned towards the closed door. 

Harry followed Malfoy out to the front of the Manor, across the lawn, and to the front Gate. 

Grabbing onto Malfoy’s shoulder, Harry glanced into the slightly taller man’s face. It was pinched with anger and desperation. The Malfoy family could not handle another scandal of Voldemort so soon after the war. Malfoy was honest in his desire to protect his family and home now. 

There was no scared sixteen or seventeen year old kid here. Malfoy was ready to fight in a way that he had never fought at Hogwarts.

Harry’s magic turned, and Harry felt it settle on his shoulders, centering his thoughts again.

They were about to fight for their very survival, whether it be fifteen or even twenty years into the future. There was no denial of what they had seen in the magic of the Stone Circle. Voldemort’s child lived where the parents had died, and there would be a reckoning once that child grew up if that child was not loved and cared for.

Malfoy nodded at Harry, and grasping onto Harry’s bicep, Malfoy smirked at him, “Lead the way.” He squeezed the muscle twice.

Harry rolled his eyes as he twisted them, leaving behind the glorious Malfoy Manor and springtime in Wiltshire to the underground wizard’s space under Whitehall. 

They reappeared only moments later in probably the most secure room in England, the office of the Minister of Magic. 

Malfoy's face was white, and he exhaled sharply. He quickly let go of Harry and took a step back. 

The crystal ceiling of the Minister of Magic’s office gleamed brightly in the manufactured sunlight of the Wizard’s Space that was the Ministry of Magic. Behind the large ornate desk sat the Minister of Magic in grand purple and gold robes.

Kingsley Shacklebolt survived two wars. The second one barely by the skin of his teeth. He hadn’t officially fought in the first Order of Phoenix, but he was aware of the group as he was graduating from Hogwarts and entering into the Auror Academy. 

While Harry was assigned to his Guard, Kingsley had taken the time to explain to Harry the full picture of the war that the adults had tried to shut him out from when he was a teenager. Kingsley had approved of what Dumbledore had started, but he had never been exactly pleased with Dumbledore's recruitment standards. Things had changed quickly after the old Headmaster and Alastor's deaths, but Kingsley knew that standing on the right side was more than just talk, it was action. 

Kingsley Shacklebolt was a man of action with a voice that knew how to comfort the scared population of Great Britain after the War. 

It was what got him his office after all.

Kingsley stared across the desk at the two men. 

He greeted them and turned to Malfoy. He congratulated him because he was not aware that Malfoy had taken the line and had ascended at only twenty-two. 

“I shouldn’t have been surprised. The letter had simply been signed as Malfoy,” he tried to joke, filling in Harry the circumstances about the initial letter.

As Kingsley looked at Harry and Malfoy, Harry was sure that Kingsley was remembering Tonk’s story about the last time he and Malfoy had spent any time alone together, Harry’s drop off to Hogwarts in 1996.

Deep in thought, Kingsley nodded to himself and looked over his clasped hands at the two younger wizards who stood before him. They were the epitome of young magical power, the young Pureblood of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and the upstart Half-blood Titled War Hero. They were also opposite sides of a coin, but in some odd way, they were equals standing beside each other. 

Kingsley’s index fingers tapped against each other, forming a steeple. Something horrible was about to land on his lap.

And when Harry and Malfoy began to explain what they saw in the Tracking Charm used at Malfoy Manor, Kingsley told them that he’d almost like to chance a broken Time-Turner and not send Harry that message. He rubbed a large hand over his face as he leaned back into his push armchair.

“What have you determined,” His deep voice rumbled.

Harry glanced over to Malfoy and cleared his throat. “We have determined that Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange completed a successful fertility ritual, and by February of 1998, she had given birth to an unknown child.”

“What would be the estimated conception?”

“Between late Spring 1997 and early Winter 1998, about ten or eleven months. ”

Kingsley frowned even deeper. How old was this child? Who had maybe four or five years to dig deep into the child’s magic knowing who its parents were? 

Kingsley looked at Malfoy, then Harry, and then back to Malfoy who cleared his throat. He was nervous, Kingsley thought, good. 

“I might add,” Malfoy started to speak, “Black women do not give birth easy, and with my aunt’s previous medical history, there is a chance that the child was premature. If she—” Malfoy stopped with an audible tick of a gasp. “She got pregnant at Beltane. The child’s due date would be in late January, but was born in December. The child is four years old, five in December.”

Harry nodded deep in thought. “That’s a good theory. Voldemort would seek out the heavy ritual days to conduct the rite.” He rolled his shoulder, and Harry’s magic move in the room, cloaking him.

Kingsley watched as Malfoy shifted in reaction and glanced over at Harry. Kingsley knew that Malfoy could sense him then, Harry thought. 

Kingsley placed his elbows on his desk and laced his fingers together. He stared up at Harry, and Harry knew then that Kingsley was going to involve Malfoy. Kingsley felt invisible magic move between the two and flicked his eyes between the two young men in the room.

“And your recommendation going forward, Chief Inspector Potter?” Kingsley asked. He watched as Malfoy straightened up, pushing his shoulders back. 

Harry cleared his throat and took a half-step forward towards the Minister’s ornate desk. “You’re not going to like this, but Draco Malfoy would be best at aiding with the investigation,” said Harry. “He has the closest familial ties to the child outside his mother and Andromeda Tonks. He is already in the know, so to say.”

Kingsley nodded but countered his protege’s argument. “I’m sure the Black family has some Witch Magic that would aid.”

“If they knew of the child before it disappeared,” Harry pointed out, “Andromeda never met the child, and I refuse to put my godson’s grandmother in any danger. Narcissa Malfoy is also out. She is better utilized in keeping her husband’s nose out of our business, and in my opinion, Narcissa Malfoy is above suspicion on this case, most likely by adept Obliviation.”

“And how do you come to that opinion, Chief Inspector?” Kingsley asked. He knew it was a solid theory. 

Harry frowned. How was he to explain? Women like Narcissa Malfoy were motivated by a lot of things, and he and Kingsley could see the six foot and change tall son of hers right in front of him. He wondered what that woman would have done for another child of her blood. Or even the letters upon letters that he had from Narcissa quietly lamenting the fact she only had one child, that the manor was too large and too quiet, but how grateful she was that her son survived the war, and that he could imagine the letters of soon, blessed soon she dared hope, there would be the sound of children in Malfoy Manor again? Narcissa would never let go of a child, especially the child of her sister that would still speak to her.

Malfoy cleared his throat, drawing the attention of both men back to him. “Mother would have moved heaven and earth for another child kin to her, Minister. If she had memories of my cousin, nothing would have stopped her from searching for the babe after war ended. The child is a Black, and the—”

Kingsley raised a hand and spoke over Malfoy. “The child is also Voldemort’s.”

Malfoy bristled but didn’t say anything further. 

Harry was reminded of many things, of a young slip of a boy sitting on a bed in an orphanage and a younger Albus Dumbledore’s judgement, of him as a young boy wanting to learn of his parent’s world and Snape’s undiluted loathing of his sheer existence. 

What if doing the next right thing was embracing the child despite the unfortunate circumstances of its birth rather than damning it forever?

“Children are not monsters, Minister.” Harry spoke quietly. “This child was a blessing of magic, and Bellatrix and Voldemort absconded with the child, away from all family magics. Draco Malfoy is half Black, and I am the head of the House of Black. We will find the child together.”

“On top of your other duties?” Kingsley asked. He watched on as Harry rubbed his stubble along his chin. 

The young Auror didn’t care. He would work until he fell apart at the seams. 

Kingsley sighed. “Merlin, Harry Potter, you going to get raked over bespelled fire by Gawain.”

Harry exhaled sharply. “With the certain players in this, would this not be an unsolved crime within Homicide and Serious Crimes, Minister?” Harry said blithely, quirking a small grin at the Minister who huffed a laugh in reply.

“Yes, yes, it most certainly would,” he mused. His dark brown eyes turned towards the quiet blond man standing before him. Malfoy shifted at Harry’s side. “Your parole is over, Mr. Malfoy, and you have abided by the commands that the Wizengamot ordered at your trial. However, I am uncertain in allowing you access due to the severity of this case.”

“Sir, I,” Malfoy faltered momentarily. “I understand that you may have doubts, Minister. I am tasked as the Head of the Malfoy family to protect the magic of the land. My cousin was conceived using the Malfoy family magic. As a Black scion, it is my duty to help my family head. We shared magic at the Manor to discover the child.”

“So, it wasn’t just a twist of your words, you shared a spellcast.”

Honest to Merlin, Malfoy squirmed under Kingsley’s stare. Harry shot a look at him. What had Malfoy talked him into, Harry thought.

“Sir, there is nothing untoward here. Potter and I performed magic together.”

“I was under the impression, Mr. Malfoy, that sharing magic such as that is left to married couples.”

Malfoy’s cheek burned, and Harry coughed gently into his hand to draw attention back to himself.

“Minister, Malfoy and I are magically related. As his mother’s maiden Head of House, I am beholden to aid him in helping him uncover the discrepancies in magic at the Manor. He is my,” Harry stopped for a moment trying to think of the term, “um, second cousin, magically?”

Malfoy nodded. “I am most grateful that Potter was able to aid me rather than my fiancée. If we had been married, I would have demanded her silence in fear for her life. Potter is made of hardier stock, and his health actually requires a steady pump of adrenaline,” he quipped.

Kingsley nodded, and Harry’s magic swirled around his hands. Clenching them quickly to dispel the flow of steady magic, he spared a glance at Malfoy. Kingsley frowned again at the two before rubbing his face with one hand.

“Mister Malfoy, do you wish to aid Auror Inspector Potter in finding this missing child?” Kingsley asked in his deep but grave voice.

Malfoy immediately nodded. “Yes, the child is my cousin, and he or she is missing. They deserve to be found.”

Kingsley turned towards Harry. “Auror Inspector Potter, do you wish Mister Malfoy’s help in finding this child?”

Harry turned his head at Malfoy and looked him up and down.

Harry’s magic picked up in the room, shifting reports on Kingsley’s desk. And with an audible snap, Harry’s magic filled the room with its presence, popping everyone’s ears. 

But Harry didn’t notice Kingsley and Malfoy wince at the pressure change. 

He saw himself and Malfoy, standing in the Stone Circle, watching the ball of light floating so gently around them. The memory of the happiness he felt pulsated in his mind. He saw himself and Malfoy together in Malfoy’s office having an actual conversation that didn’t end with wands or fists. Malfoy seeing Harry’s magic for what it was becoming, something he hadn’t dare to breathe to anyone other than Andromeda. He saw for one moment Malfoy and he walking down a tree lined road, surrounded by pasture fields, and in the next moment, he saw them running through a hallway with their wands drawn. 

Harry’s magic buzzed in his ears, and Harry shook his head to clear the sensation away. His magic apparently thought that Malfoy was ready to hunt and prove himself. 

Malfoy had ability and talent. It was time for him to live up to his own beliefs. If Malfoy wanted to help, then Harry needed to give him a chance. 

“Yes, Draco Malfoy would be an excellent consultant for the Auror Department.”

Both Kingsley and Malfoy raised an eyebrow at Harry. 

Kingsley actually scoffed, and Harry couldn’t exactly blame him. A Malfoy working for the Auror Department would be some sort of nightmare parallel timeline.

“You will swear an Unbreakable Vow to the Ministry,” Kingsley stated.

As Malfoy sputtered for a moment before hesitantly nodding in agreement, Harry, however, wasn’t cowed by Kingsley’s unilateral command. If Malfoy was doing this for the right reason, Harry wouldn’t be part of Malfoy being under the Ministry’s thumb. Not with what the Malfoy Family had hiding in the far field of the Manor. 

This wasn't right. Ministers come and go, but magic like he had seen in the Standing Stones of Malfoy Manor needed to be protected. 

“No!” Harry quickly interjected. The magic rolled over his fingers and up his wrist. “Malfoy is not on probation anymore, and he hasn’t broken his conditions to the Ministry.”

Harry’s throat twitched as he continued. “I won’t allow him to swear a vow to you or the Ministry. You will not hold that seat forever, and I will not see him bound to the Ministry forever. He’ll swear one to me. I’m his mother’s maiden Head of House. The House of Black holds primacy over Malfoy. He will swear one to me, only me.”

Kingsley sighed but nodded. It wasn’t every day someone told him no, and he and Harry both knew it. Malfoy looked surprised in a pinched sort of way but nodded all just the same.

In the locked and warded offices of the Minister of Magic, the three wizards knelt their heads over the desk of the oldest man in the room and hashed out the nuances of the vow. 

Harry’s magic simmered over his skin. It seemed so long ago that Harry was musing over open unsolved case files with Neville, but here he was with his mentor and his schoolyard enemy.

The problem with Unbreakable Vows was probably the most obvious. 

The Unbreakable Vow took the ability of the vower to make certain choices that would work against the vow for the rest of the vower’s life. The permanence of the vow was a noose around the neck of a vower, but for the requester of the vow, there were no consequences. Sure, the surviving family could sue in the Wizengamot on the creation of vow in bad faith, but there had not been a successful case in over two hundred years. 

In Harry’s opinion now that he was an Auror, an Unbreakable Vow was worse than all three of the Unforgivables, and funnily enough, an Unbreakable Vow was not considered Dark Arts by the Ministry either. A misspoken vow was just as manipulative, as an Imperius Curse; caused pain if the vow was tested against, as like the Cruciatus Curse, and should the vow be broken, as deadly as the Killing Curse. It was not a piece of magic that was to be trifled with.

Malfoy knelt before Harry, and Harry followed, adjusting himself to ground the magic about to flow through them. They grasped each other’s forearm, and Kingsley stood beside the clasped hands, brandishing his own ebony wand. Harry breathed in.

Meeting Malfoy’s eyes, Harry was struck by the absurdness of his day. Draco Malfoy was about to swear a vow to him. His teenage self would have never believed this. 

Kingsley cleared his throat. “Will you, Draco Malfoy, promise to keep faith with Harry Potter in the pursuit of what has been created at Malfoy Manor that you both witnessed together in order to right the wrong?”

Vows were always such a tricky bit of magic. 

The noose couldn't be so tight it would snap on the vower in death the instant they first fought the vow, but it couldn't be loose enough to ignore. 

Soon after the end of the war, Andromeda had taken it upon herself to give Harry a crash course in Unbreakable Vows the way a Black was to treat them. The madness of people in the summer and fall seeking Harry out and begging for help had Andromeda sitting down with him every night for a fortnight quizzing him about the basics Arithamancial math and the number three in vows. And even Mrs. Malfoy, in one letter that she would probably regret relaying to Harry, wrote to Harry reminding him that favoured a looser vow with vague connotations was best because one could never be so sure when that vow would snap the vower back.

“I will," Malfoy replied.

A beam of light brighter than the sun shot out of Kingsley’s wand and wrapped around their hands and arms. Malfoy let out a hiss as the magic touched the skin, and he squeezed Harry's arm tighter.

“And will you, to the best of your ability, aid and protect Harry Potter, to act as his sword and shield in honor and glory of both of your houses?” Kingsley intoned.

“I will,” Malfoy answered.

Another light sprang forth, and Harry looked at Malfoy’s face. 

Despite the sweat collecting at his brow, Malfoy looked steady and focused. 

Harry wondered if he was happy about vow. Harry wasn't exactly thrilled, but he understood Kingsley's desire to keep him safe if he was to go on another Voldemort inspired treasure hunt around the United Kingdom again with a former, albeit discharged, Death Eater.

Kingsley shifted and gripped his wand tighter. 

This was the last of the vow. 

“And should it prove necessary, if it seems that Harry Potter has failed in his task, will you carry out the mission that he has taken on at your behest?”

“I will," came the reply.

A thin strip of white flame shot out of the wand and wound its way around their hands. It glowed brightly, full of intensity of a strip of sun. 

The power of three vows and three affirmations and three powerful wizards sealed the magic. 

It was done.

Kingsley sighed at the two wizards before opening the desk drawer and handing Malfoy a small capped jar of Essence of Murtlap.

“Thank you,” he murmured before removing his handkerchief from his breast pocket. A dab of medicine and gentle hands, Malfoy had doctored his own and Harry’s before Harry really realized what Malfoy was even doing.

A whispered healing spell later, and all evidence of the Unbreakable Vow was the light pink twines of healed skin that wrapped their right arms and hands. Those marks would be gone by dinner tonight. 

“Thanks,” Harry said to Malfoy as he flexed his fingers and hand. “Also, Kingsley, I’m worried about what you’re doing if you’re keeping Murtlap in your desk drawers.”

The older man smiled tightly in response and simply told them to get out of his office and get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Egg:
> 
> The Unbreakable Vow is heavily influenced by the Unbreakable Vow between Narcissa and Snape in HPB Chapter 2 (Spinner's End).
> 
> My original chapter's end notes had me asking the readers if I should be tagging for Bashing. As you all probably realize, things are not very good in the Black-Weasley world. Harry is stuck in the middle, but he recognizes that he has a responsibility to the Black family just as he has a responsibility to the Weasley family. I have a lot of head-cannons about complexity of grief and how it affects everyone in the HP world a little differently, and I look forward to sharing it with everyone in this story.


	6. The New Door at Grimmauld Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry returns home to discover his home has more surprises for him before the night is finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited on 26/02/2021

In the end, Harry did not try to return back to his office. 

He would leave the police files and crime scene photos of Madam Bones’ death for tomorrow. His and Neville’s leads were nonexistent until whoever was denying their requests for expert help from the Department of Mysteries granted their appeal. 

The important thing now was to tie up the loose ends with Malfoy. This new problem of finding Voldemort’s missing child was more pressing than a cold case of a witch long dead. 

Harry had a debriefing to do, and he could feel that this was a debriefing that was a long time coming. 

Kingsley had signed off on Harry’s partial reassignment, moving the paperwork surreptitiously through the DMLE file backlog. It was a benefit of being involved in bureaucracy he had told the young men. He suggested that Harry would spend his mornings in the office, and at three when Robards would be in his usual daily meetings, Harry would Apparate directly to Malfoy Manor. 

This Saturday was his on-Saturday, but next week, he'd start meeting Malfoy one-on-one.

Harry told Kingsley that he would keep him updated as Kingsley needed to know. Malfoy was silent through the rest of the meeting, and his eyes rarely left Harry’s direction. Harry didn’t want to begin to even think about what Malfoy was pondering over, but he still needed to speak to his former classmate. 

He couldn’t imagine the desperation Kingsley must have felt to require an Unbreakable Vow. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Malfoy was thinking by agreeing with the demands. Harry felt drained and stretched in so many directions, and he wasn’t the one putting his political life or his magical life on the line for once. 

Harry’s magic pressed on him that Malfoy was doing it to protect his family, his legacy, and his magic first, but there was something else that Malfoy was doing it for. Harry felt that maybe it was for Malfoy to finally be on the right side of something historical, but there was so much bad history between him and the blond git that sometimes he felt that it was an impossible bridge to cross, with his marriage and friendships with the Weasley family and the years of history between the two of them at Hogwarts.

After returning Malfoy back to his Manor, the two sat in silence in Malfoy’s office, both of their minds pressing on the gravity of the situation found in the far field. 

Malfoy sat rigidly in that poncy chair by the fire and stared into the flame. His fingers were steepled, and his elbows rested non too delicately on the crushed velvet seat. 

“You didn’t tell Shacklebolt about the Stone Circle,” he said.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Magic like that needs to be protected,” said Harry. 

Malfoy hummed in response but didn’t say anything more.

“You came to him in good faith,” replied Harry “The magic we saw wasn’t the problem. It was people that abused it.”

Malfoy smiled. “Potter, I must say, I’m liking this break from your goody-two-shoes self.”

With that, Malfoy broke out the good Firewhiskey, and they began to speak of the horrors of their war. Harry, who rarely drank hard alcohol, sipped his whiskey neat while Malfoy spoke hauntingly of the darkened manor and Nagini’s glowing eyes. 

He in return told Malfoy of the hunger and confusion in the months before the Battle of Hogwarts, squatting in Grimmauld Place and surviving Harry and Ron called behind Hermione’s back “the camping trip from hell.” 

They didn’t speak when the other spoke. 

Honesty for honesty, the olive branch extended further between the two men.

Story after story, they shared their struggles in what should have been the last year of Hogwarts. Finally, one of them broke. 

Full of pent up anger, Malfoy stood and threw his glass in the fire when Harry spoke of the fighting between himself and Ron, and how Ron left and how he was afraid Hermione would leave soon after. 

“You are a better man than I,” Malfoy admitted. His long white blond hair glowed in the firelight.

“Surviving made us better men,” Harry replied evenly in return.

Malfoy laughed bitterly. “No, Potter, at least not for me.”

Harry set down his drink. “You survived, Draco Malfoy. You took what bad hand you had given to you by your parents, and you survived. You could have told the truth to Bellatrix or really fought me at the Battle of Hogwarts. You know me. You know me, and you lied. You know me, and you chose me over your family and Voldemort.”

For a long moment, Malfoy didn’t say anything. He stared into the fire, leaning dangerously close, and squeezed the mantle with his fists. The shadows of the room flickered over his shoulders, and Harry was seized by a feeling of his own magic curling across his shoulders like his cloak comforting him in the way that those long, late night walks at Hogwarts had always given him.

“No matter what I made those choices, and for seven years, I made bad choices,” Malfoy quietly said. He looked poignantly into the fire now away from Harry. “I choose what was easy over what was right.”

Harry let out a hollow, low chuckle. Malfoy wanted to talk about choices, like any of them really had choice. Dumbledore's little speech might have worked on him when he was twelve, but at twenty-two and survived a war?

"As the resident school orphan, I think I have the authority to suggest that choosing to do what you can to keep your parents alive over thumbing your nose at Voldemort who was living in your home with free access to them doesn’t make your choices wrong. They’re a reason why I argued that you were under coercion. Criminal law in this country found your defense a textbook case of a duress crime.”

Malfoy gripped the wood tighter. “Don’t think you know me just because we went to school together. I was a jealous little shit, Potter, who got everything he asked for,” he said tightly in that same quiet voice. “At school, I was so jealous of Weasley and Granger, and how it was so easy for them to make friends with you. So yes, I am angry because I never could even make a friend like that, and to toss it away when you were struggling, Potter, it just makes me angry because I wanted—”

“Let me stop you there,” Harry commanded. He stood and held up a hand to emphasize his point. “At the time, we were all under unimaginable stress. Ron and I have both apologized to each other for what we’ve done. I don’t hold it against him just as I don’t hold it against you for breaking my nose, or hell, even when you let in those Death Eaters, even when you disarmed Dumbledore himself. Because—“

“Because you’re an idiot, Potter,” spat Malfoy, “Good people died because of me.”

“And you think good people haven’t died because of me?” Harry rounded. “There’s a whole wall at Hogwarts full of names on it who died for me. I even led the closest person I’d ever have to a father to his death, you twat! I just don’t blame you anymore because I realize now that you were a kid, just like I was. We were spotty teenagers sent to do the jobs of men.”

Malfoy turned, walked towards Harry, and picked up Harry’s half-full glass. Titling the glass sharply back, he downed it like a shot and slammed the glass upside down back onto the wood. 

He leaned into Harry’s face, trying to crowd the shorter man back into his seat. “You should have let me and my father rot in Azkaban.” He hissed.

Harry let out a short laugh, and it startled Malfoy back into some sort of sense. The blond man took a step back and ran his hand nervously through his long hair. 

“And spend the rest of my days as the sole focus of two Black women? No, no, thank you, Malfoy.”

Malfoy chuckled darkly and fell back into his seat. He rubbed his hand over his face. 

Harry could understand how the other man felt. Today had been a complete upheaval to everything Harry had thought to be safe, to be finished. 

Before the Tracking Spell, Harry had felt on top of the world, to feel the magic pull so deeply, and then for it all to be shattered by being touched so closely by dark magic. Fate was so cruel, and as his thoughts turned to the unknown child, he was filled with worry. 

Harry had lived and survived once where it seemed that the world wanted to devour you whole. Malfoy had lived for three years under the same roof as Voldemort, waiting for him to order his parents or his own for the Dark Lord’s amusement. And now, there was a child of that Monster and his most infamous Death Eater somewhere in the unknown. 

And his only help would be his childhood rival. 

Harry took a deep breath. 

“Draco,” Harry murmured, testing the name across his lips. 

If Draco Malfoy swore a bleeding Unbreakable Vow to him, he best get used to the bloke.

Tilting his head to the side, letting it loll against his shoulder, Malfoy stared for a moment at Harry. “Oh? It’s like that, right?”

Harry didn’t reply. He sat back in the chair and looked over at the flushed man. The alcohol was clearly starting to affect him.

“Right,” Malfoy laughed to himself, “I’ve sworn a vow to you, my mum’s your favorite owl-pal, and now, now we’re off on adventure together. I reckon we better start addressing each other a bit more familiar.”

Harry smiled slowly. “Then, Harry it is,” he said. “I feel like I owe you that, after the last few years.” 

“Right,” Malfoy said again. He didn’t look like he agreed with Harry, but deciding to roll with the situation, he continued on, “I’ve drank three more shots than you.”

Leaning back in his own poncy wooden chair, Harry slunk down, pushing his head onto the top of the cushion on the back of the chair. His long legs stretched out in front of him, and he crossed them to match Malfoy’s own. 

“Can’t drink in excess anymore, Ma-, Draco,” admitted Harry. “My magic loses control, and I start levitating stuff around the room. My house elf goes spar about it. Two is the most I’ve had in about three years.”

Malfoy nodded in response. “Hmm. I can barely stomach red meat now.” He said quietly, offering a bit of information about himself to Harry. 

It was an honesty for honesty, and Harry realized that maybe Malfoy, Draco, he corrected himself again, was playing the same game.

Harry smiled bitterly. “Neither can I. I can stomach poultry and fish, but beef broth is as much I can handle. Don’t even come at me with pork in the morning. What caused yours?” Harry asked.

“That gods’ damned snake,” cursed Draco. “I watched her eat people. If they were alive, He-he’d,” he stuttered and paused, “He would call it dinner and a show.”

There was no question who ‘He’ was in Harry’s mind.

Harry blinked, and he felt that low squirm of horror in his gut. 

Draco Malfoy had seen horrible, horrible things, more than Harry ever thought about. He had seen once in a dream where Nagini had swallowed a dead body, but to see her, in person, eat more than one alive, Harry couldn’t begin to imagine what that would have done to him. Knowing that if he messed up, Nagini could have someone a bit more personal on her menu. 

“Mine,” Harry started, “Mine is trauma from who knows when. Childhood, maybe.” He cleared his throat. “My cousin and uncle would have massive morning fry-ups. Smelling bacon makes my stomach turn if I’m stressed, but for eating, it all changed the night of the Battle of Hogwarts,” Harry rambled. “After Voldemort killed me in the forest, I just, I think it was that. Dying changed me. Hermione thinks I have a mental hang-up over food, like a disorder, which I don’t know maybe true, but I always seem to come back to that night.” 

“So Mother’s tale was correct. You did die again and survived.” Draco said as he stared at Harry, his silver eyes fixing him with an intense stare. 

Harry could hear Draco’s earlier breathy question _“What has the war made you?”_ echoing in his ears. 

“It changed you,” Draco murmured, tilting his head towards the fireplace.

Harry nodded. “It did.”

“It changed me too,” came the haunting reply.

The fireplace popped gently. They didn’t speak anymore. They didn’t need to.

Harry felt like it was the first honest conversation he had in months, maybe years with someone that knew him before the end of the war. Hermione and Ron and Ginny, they understood to some level, but it was a relief to talk to someone who went through a similar kind of hell and survived. 

Hermione, hunted and despised because she was a Muggleborn, was moved to the point until she confounded her parents into forgetting her for over a year all in order to protect them. At times she seemed to be the closest in understanding the absolute fervour in which other Purebloods could hate what they viewed as lesser. 

At least the Weasleys and Neville were given enough a pass to even return to Hogwarts and live their lives despite their ties to Harry and Hermione. To Sympathizers and Death Eaters, being a Blood Traitor was passable because at least they had the Blood. 

However, Hermione could only sympathize with the horrors and nightmares that plagued Harry since the end of his fourth year. 

Living with the Dark Lord and some of his most insane Death Eaters, Draco Malfoy had lived what Harry had only dreamed. He wasn’t an idiot though. Teenage Draco Malfoy was a heinous little shit while they were at school together, but for Adult Draco Malfoy, Harry was willing to see what had become of the youngest Death Eater, now reformed. From what Harry had seen so far, Draco Malfoy had shut the door on what his father thought was a proper young wizard. 

It was early in the evening when Harry Apparated home to Number 12 Grimmauld Place and made his way up to the second floor, to his small office that he had created in Mrs. Black’s old parlor room. The lights were off on the ground floor, but Harry heard Kreacher cleaning down the hall. 

Grimmauld Place had taken on a transformation similar to Malfoy Manor. The air was cleaner and lighter. The home now did not smell rank with the rot of forgotten Dark Magic. The walls were no longer dirty, and the more undesirable factors of the house disappeared as both Kreacher and Harry regained their will to live again. 

Kreacher, as old as he was, was an invaluable member of the house, and Harry felt himself lucky to have a house elf so knowledgeable of Pureblood culture, teaching him the male Black family traditions. More importantly, Kreacher knew the house and its odd quirks. 

After penning a letter to Neville asking for discretion on Harry’s whereabouts today and sending it straight to him, Harry stopped to think about his day with Malfoy. He poured himself a finger of Odgen’s and waited for his magic to manifest again to tease out a suggestion to him again. 

Warmth crawled down his shoulders, hugging his arms and back, and Harry remembered the excited chill of the Stone Circles. 

He shivered and shucked off his Auror’s coat. It floated to the stand behind the door and hung itself.

Harry’s head felt as if it weighed as much as a disenchanted Bludger, so heavy with all that had happened, and all he wanted to go to his office first to think over some of the memories and try to mediate. Today had brought so much excitement and wonder and suddenly so much fear. He wanted to see the Stones again. He wanted to see the magic fly around him. He wanted answers. He wanted to find the child. He wanted to—

Harry paused to grab the quartz reading stone that floated from off his desk. Hermione would kill him if he had cracked this.

Right. He paused and looked over at the various floating objects around the room and scratched his cheek. 

Making his way to the old writing desk, he set the book Malfoy had given him down and frowned. He barely had time to read reports, let alone his advance work. 

He paused and pulled his magic back in. Books and quills floated back towards their homes around the room.

“Master?” Kreacher asked, walking into the study. His ears bounced as he carried a covered plate for his Wizard. “You visited old magic today.” He said plainly as if talking about the weather.

Harry tried not to gape at the old elf, but he had to admit he was startled. Merlin, Kreacher was going to surprise the life out of him one day. No wonder Kreacher lived through so many generations of crazed Blacks, Harry thought. He had to be one step ahead, or he would have had his head lobbed off centuries ago.

Harry took a sip of his Firewhiskey before the old house elf would banish it. “Kreacher, how do you know?”

Kreacher laid Harry’s dinner on the side table for him and pointed at the glass of water. Harry took the hint and took a sip of it before Kreacher took it out on him. Kreacher was militant about manners and made everyone dine in the dining room except when Harry needed counsel. 

Ginny may still never care for Kreacher, but that old house elf had grown to care for Harry, and in return, Harry had grown to care for the old elf.

“Kreacher knows many things, Master,” the old elf croaked. “Kreacher was a young elf when old Black Mistress married old Malfoy Master. Kreacher learned from Grandmother Elf before returning back to the Black family. Kreacher remembers old magic, old circles at Malfoy Manor. From the lands before.”

Harry blinked. The elf knew of the Stone Circle. Harry was about to ask a question when Kreacher’s eyes blinked slowly back at Harry. The old elf motioned for Harry to begin eating. 

“Master Harry’s magic carries promise of a new help. Master Harry saw the magic of the lands, and his magic seeks to heal it. Kreacher will help good Master Harry again even though Kreacher is very old.”

At Harry’s confused look, Kreacher continued. “Master Harry visited Malfoy Manor. Master went with the Head of the Family into the Stone Circle. Master Harry saw magic, and the magic saw Master. Kreacher is happy Master there with Now Good Malfoy Head.”

Harry laughed. “Well, that about sums it. Draco Malfoy really surprised me. He even lent me a book.” He motioned at the book from his desk. Kreacher hummed in approval.

“Now Miss Cissy’s son is a kind ally to Master Harry, and Master Harry will be a kind ally to Miss Cissy’s son. Potter and Black, and Black and Malfoy, these are good allies,” said Kreacher, nodding his head. His ears flapped slightly. 

He closed his eyes, and Harry watched Kreacher think. “Old Magic is tired, Master Harry. Wizards promised of care for the land, but a Wizard’s life is short and fickle. They forget where magic of the lands came, and they take and take. Magic is not might, Master. Magic is balance.”

”So I have learned again today,” Harry agreed. 

Harry looked down at the thick vegetable stew, eating and pushing the small bites around. He watched Kreacher pick up one of the small paperback books on his side table. Kreacher sneered at the title, _The Two Towers._ Harry had finished it again last night, and if Ginny had another late night at practice, he’d start the third book again.

Looking over at the mantle clock, Harry caught the time, almost eleven at night. Harry rubbed his face in exhaustion as he looked around the fireplace, his eyes catching on the Black family antiques. 

Mrs. Black’s old parlor room was very eclectic. Kreacher had found boxes of antiques in the second basement that had escaped the 1995 purge and theft and had redecorated the open rooms as he saw fit. While the woods and colors of the room were changed with Kreacher’s blessing and help, the old elf had seen himself as the interior decorator. The small obelisks at either end of the mantle straddled the ornate clock that was decorated with a sphynx and gilded scarabs. Kreacher had told him that this was the Egyptian Revival style of many noble wizarding homes more than a century ago, and Harry had enjoyed coaxing the old townhouse back from the gothic inspired darkness into a beloved home filled with light. Finally, Harry felt that he had made enough strides in the home to balance the darkness and the light, but was it enough for him?

Harry thought about his magic. Often he felt like he was all force and bluster, his magic coiling on him, waiting for it to burst from within him. His magic had almost obliterated the last two Death Eaters that had caught him flat footed, but at the same time, his magic protected him as it always had. 

Was the magic that Harry learned and wielded unbalanced? He wondered if that was why his magic was so volatile in these last few years. Where was his balance to be found?

At Grimmauld Place, Harry had seen his share of unbalanced magic’s effect on both human and creature, and just like at Malfoy Manor, it was like magic had finally found peace, perhaps a new centering of balance. What was Draco Malfoy’s secret to success? Harry was slogging through scheduled therapy sessions twice a month and only felt barely in control of what was going on around him. 

Harry’s thoughts turned inward again, towards today’s surprise encounter. His magic had led him back to Malfoy just like it always seemed to do in school. He had let teenage self obsess over Malfoy for years, and it had brought him to the edge of Death and back due to the Malfoy family. 

Now, finally, after years of a quiet truce, his magic brought him back to that blonde git.

Harry stilled his spoon and tapped it on the bowl gently. Magic was balance was what Kreacher had said, but what from where did the balance come from?

So, he asked the old elf. 

Kreacher’s laugh was quiet but harsh. He hummed and rocked back further into the chair. “Master is barely a man, but Master Harry reminds me so much of young Black children.” He straightened his black robe across his lap. “Young Master Regulus asked Kreacher this question when Young Master was barely taller than Kreacher.”

The old elf leaned against the back of the chair. “Magic came from the earth, sky, sun, and moon, from waters and trees and flowers and fields. Magic holds the hand and guides the path in darkness and in light. No one knows where it came from, Master,” Kreacher explained, “but it has always been here for all to practice in their own way.”

Everyone was affected by magic, but how was magic affected by everyone? Harry wondered but didn’t ask Kreacher just yet. 

“In their own way? I suppose that’s right,” Harry mused. “Dumbledore always said that love and music were a type of magic that even Muggles could practice.” 

Surprising Harry, Kreacher just nodded solemnly. “Magic is magic. Some have more; some have less. Some find it easy, and some find it hard,” explained the house elf in that enigmatic way. “Some are blessed or cursed by fate and destiny. Master was cursed and blessed. Master will learn much magic. Master will learn control yet. Master is too old for accidental magic, and yet, Kreacher is still cleaning up messes,” Kreacher teased, laughing at his own joke at Harry’s expense.

Harry blushed. His magic had been acting wonkier than normal in the last few years. Hermione thought it was the removal of the final Horcrux and the death of Voldemort that finally allowed Harry to live like never had at Hogwarts. 

On good days, his magic stretched and danced like a young unicorn, and on bad days, it coiled and attacked like an angry dragon.

With Kingsley’s help and Hermione’s approval, Harry had been seeing a squib psychologist on the quiet for a couple of years. Anne was a steady, no-nonsense woman in her late forties, perhaps a little older than Andromeda. 

Because of her inability to fully protect against mind magics, the sessions were coded with popular Muggle literature. As Wizards were slow to address mental health concerns, Harry felt trusting a muggle-based profession was better than submitting to Legilimency attacks to suss out the bad from good memories, and the usual magical treatments were fanatic use of light or dark magic or a life of mind-alternating potions, neither Harry wanted. Harry already had two lifetimes of trauma and grief, and he knew wizards lived too long of a life to permanently cripple himself. 

Therapy was difficult. Talking about his problems in a roundabout way was even harder. Until Andromeda had suggested one of Tonk’s favorite novels to him, Harry was at a loss to how to begin describing what had happened to him during the war. Talking about his life before Hogwarts was even more difficult, but he could do it. For Teddy, he would do it. Now, it was up to Harry to stop bleeding from what hurt him before he bleed on someone who never cut him. 

Anne had theorized that his magic was finally allowing itself free after years of shackling, from the hatred of the Dursleys, from the expectations of the general Wizarding Public on a young teenager, and from the death of the mad Lord Voldemort. 

Kreacher squirmed in his seat. Harry had learned in Auror training that patience, letting beings like house elves tell you what they wanted rather than putting them on the spot and asking them often brought better, more honest results. 

“Master, Kreacher would like to ask a question.”

“Yes?” Harry asked, eating more of the stew.

“Master and Mistress will have children, soon?” The old elf begged, “Kreacher miss children in the House of Black. Young Master Teddy needs siblings.”

Harry swallowed hard. The lump of potato creeped slowly down his throat burning the inside. He coughed to dislodge it.

“Kreacher,” Harry began. “Ginny is starting a new season with the Harpies. She, well, she doesn’t want to start now.”

Kreacher blinked again. His face twisted into a more pronounced frown. He stared into Harry’s eyes, and Harry finally had to blink to look away. All knowing house elves would be the death of him.

“Kreacher understands. Young Mistress makes Master unhappy. Master wish for little children, but Mistress doesn’t want to be like Mistress’ Mother.”

Harry dropped his soup spoon. Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, Harry’s mind chanted. He needed to get this nipped quickly before Kreacher’s schemes grew out of control. 

“What? No, Kreacher! Ginny’s got a choice in this! We’ve our whole lives ahead of us. We only just got married!” He fumbled, reaching down to get his spoon.

“Kreacher understands. Master will wait before giving Mistress a fertility potion for strong babe. It would be good Yule gift for Mistress.”

Harry felt his stomach drop. Danger, this was danger. His magic rolled up his shoulders. 

He could see it. He and Ron, holding back Hermione from beating Ginny after she lobbed off Kreacher's head. Teddy, wailing in the background because Gin had killed his playmate. Andromeda, sighing before going down to the lower basement to fetch the lovely carved mount that Kreacher had carved himself for when he died.

“Kreacher, no!” Harry exploded. Three of the books flew off a small bookcase and shot across the room. The lights flickered, and Harry breathed trying to pull back his magic from exploding his office. 

“Kreacher, yes!” The wizened elf exclaimed and, standing on the chair, stomped his foot. “Kreacher not waiting to be over six hundred to care for a new family member.”

Harry groaned and covered his face. How in the bleeding hell could this day get any worse?

Harry didn’t even know if Ginny or Molly would even let that old elf in the room with their hypothetical baby. Andromeda had no problem with Kreacher helping care for Teddy, but then again, Andromeda had been nannied by that elf as a child.

There was a knock on the door. Kreacher hopped down off the chair and grumbled at Harry. 

“Harry, are you in your office?” Came a call from outside of the room.

Harry lifted his hand, and the door opened. 

Andromeda Tonks stood in the doorframe. Her hair was pinned gently back, letting a few dark brown curls slip over her shoulders. She was dressed sharply in a pressed set of trousers and a loose, long sleeve blouse decorated with little butterflies. 

“A late one, and straight into the office? I haven’t seen a day like this for you in ages.” She teased. “I was wondering when you would be home.”

“Andromeda, I’m sorry.” Harry apologized. “I got caught up on setting up a new case. It,” Harry struggled for the right words, “It was a long day today.”

She smiled widely, showing her teeth. “I understand, darling. You forget this isn’t my first time seeing an Auror at work.” She chided gently. “Teddy’s already in bed.” She added, stepping into the room and sitting daintily on the edge of the desk.

Harry felt some guilt, but he’d check on the sprog before turning in. Usually bedtime was his time with Teddy, giving Andromeda a break from her role as main caregiver of her grandson. He was lucky, most first and second year Aurors were on swing overnights, but he and Neville had a very fixed schedule during the week. 

“Your wife Flooed in to pick up some clothes for the Bryngoleu House about an hour ago, but she didn’t say if she’d be staying for the weekend.” Andromeda said, lifting the book that Draco Malfoy had let him borrow. 

She didn’t try to open it, but she did inspect the cover. She set it down, gently, on his desk. “Make sure you open that with gloves on. You’re not blood related to the book’s writer.” She explained.

Harry nodded absently and murmured a thanks. Eating some more of his dinner, he looked up at the older woman. She was looking around the small office at the piles of books and an old map Harry had conjured of the British Isles a year or so ago while he was still on the manhunt for the Lestrange Brothers. 

The old portrait of Mrs. Black, Sirius’s mother, scowled at the attention but didn’t dare say a word. Harry and Kreacher had moved the old portrait from the entrance hall almost three years ago now, and the change of scenery had done old Walburga a mound of good. 

But the old Mistress of the house was on thin ice, and she was aware that if she started screaming with a young child in the house, she’d fast be kindling.

“Andromeda,” Harry began, “you don’t have to be my secretary for Gin.” He bit his lip and looked down, trying to think what Ginny had last told her about quidditch practice this week. “She’s got practice this week, hardcore. The season starts in two, and old Jones thinks Gin’s got what it takes to make the National Team this year next,” explained Harry.

Andromeda looked at Kreacher who was twisting a withered ear. “Kreacher, be a dear, and do not give Ginevra a fertility potion. It would reflect poorly on your Master that he could not sire an heir without magical interference.”

Kreacher scowled but nodded, his ears flapping. “Kreacher will go clean the windows now.” The old elf stood, and, with a pop, he was gone somewhere else in the house.

Harry signed. 

“You need to get better at inserting a bit of shame if you want to start winning arguments against him,” said Andromeda.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I keep thinking house elves are better at understanding logic.”

“House elves are not human, darling.” Andromeda countered. “Kreacher is sworn to serve and protect this house. Ginny is not a Black but married to its Heir. Kreacher is only thinking for the security of the House.”

Andromeda smiled gently at Harry. “Eat, and tell me what you can about your day.”

Merlin, his day, his thoughts turned inward momentarily. Voldemort, translucent and honey-colored, and Harry pulled his thought away and sighed to himself. He was going to have nightmares tonight. Perhaps he’d add some of Malfoy’s trauma to spice up his nightmares. He hadn’t dreamt of that damned snake in a while.

Harry hummed. “I saw your sister today. She looked well.”

Andromeda raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And will this be a common occurrence now?” She asked.

Harry huffed and chewed a bite. “Yeah,” he said. He scratched the side of his growing beard. “I think so.”

Andromeda picked up the paperback, and turning it over, she smiled. “Nymphadora would have gone crazy to realize a movie was being made. It was Ted’s favorite book, and he read _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ to her when she was a child.”

Harry wanted to frown. Andromeda Tonks never deflected conversation like this. 

“Andromeda, do you want me to talk to Narcissa on your behalf?” He asked. He would do it for her if she wanted it. 

Andromeda frowned and sighed. She and Harry often did not speak about her sisters, just like how Harry avoided speaking with Andromeda about his childhood with the Dursleys. There was always some insular trauma that would be rear its ugly head, and they would often end with both of them crying together on 

“Harry, darling, it was so long ago.”

Harry thought back about seeing Narcissa Malfoy that morning. She had looked healthy, but Harry was so focused on dealing with her husband and visiting with Malfoy’s fiancée that Harry couldn’t focus on Mrs. Malfoy. She was surrounded by her family, but when did she have to herself? Harry knew she had thrown herself into raising her beloved son, but now that he was a man who refused to be held back by his parents anymore, what did she have?

“But she’s your sister,” protested Harry. “I think she’s lonely.”

Andromeda looked up, her face catching the warm light from the fire. “She’s the lady of a manor, Harry. To be one is to be alone.” Andromeda demurred.

Harry sighed. 

“Sometimes, Andromeda, I think one of you should just reach out to the other. I can’t imagine what it was like for you, but Narcissa was still in school, right?”

Andromeda set down the book. Her smile was bittersweet, and Harry knew that he had worn her down. 

“She was. She was in her OWL year, and I was preparing for my NEWTS,” she began. “It was, well, difficult. After Mother and Father told her to report back to them about some of the rumors they had heard about myself and Ted, well, Narcissa chose to run straight into Lucius Malfoy’s arms as a distraction for my parents. He was a well sought after match, and the excitement of securing the Malfoy name gave me enough time to get all my affairs in order. After I graduated and the truth of my relationship with Ted came out, well, that’s when I formally declared I was turning away from the Black family.”

“And now, all that is left of the Black family is the two of you. You two are the only survivors.”

Andromeda looked down at her pale hands and squeezed them tightly on her lap. “Perhaps, it’s time for me to pen a letter to her.” She turned to reach for two books on the floor and twisted to set them on the shelf above. “Did something change?

“Draco Malfoy is to start doing consultant work with me,” Harry explained, offering the excuse Kingsley had approved. It was a simple explanation of the truth that didn’t bother his hand either. “I’ve a new case that requires someone with his sort of experience.”

Andromeda’s brown eyes blinked in astonishment, and she turned around to pierce Harry with only a mother’s concern. She had heard the stories from Ron and Harry about Draco Malfoy. Harry was sure he knew what she was thinking, if he was trying to project his feelings onto her.

“And what of Neville? Are you two still trying to develop that silly spell?” She asked teasingly. “You two boys watch Star Wars one time, I swear. Perhaps it’s not a good idea to introduce science fiction movies to Wizards.”

Harry laughed. “We figured it out. Hermione is absolutely furious about it and told us if we ever teach Ron and George she’ll make Gin’s Bat Boogey look like a common cold. Neville is still on cold cases with me, and the burns are all healed now.”

They chatted for a bit longer, and Harry felt the tightness from the day leave him. Teddy had learned to sight read a few more words, and Andromeda had tried to instruct him how to create a duck’s bill with his Metamorphmagus abilities. He could get the skin to move forward in a bill-like shape, but only just so. He still couldn’t change the color or texture just yet. After that, they got Kreacher to bring down more pillows and made a fort in the downstairs sitting room. The silverware had jumped from the drawers in the kitchen and joined them, lining the top of the sheet and pillow castle they had built. It was the simple joys of living in a magical home.

When Kreacher had taken Teddy out to the back garden where they had turned into a large playground for Teddy to burn off more energy, Andromeda had gone to the first floor basement to work on a couple of specialized potions she had read about in Witch Weekly. She also had a new potions apprentice that wanted to try procuring a specific breed of scarab in order to improve on the Wit-Sharpening Potion, so she was finalizing a special import of a variety of jewel scarabs from Costa Rica, in the Americas. 

It had been a busy day.

Andromeda didn’t ask for the details of Harry’s day, which he was grateful for. Harry wanted to tell her about the magic he had seen so badly. The Standing Stones were again pressing on his mind. He couldn’t tell Andromeda just yet of the mission to track down Voldemort’s child or her dead sister’s involvement, but Merlin, did he ever want to share with her the joy he had felt seeing magic play around him. How it filled his body with so much happiness almost as much as hearing Teddy for the first time say “Hawwee.”

“Andromeda, do wizards believe in ley lines?” Harry asked as they made their way downstairs to the kitchen. He shifted the platter and let his magic take hold, wordlessly and wandlessly, floating the dishes into the kitchen.

The older witch let out a loud laugh, and she spun on her sensible heels to face him. “Darling, no, but I’ll have to tell you how Ted and Nymphadora spent a holiday weekend in Avebury when she was about eight. I was furious that he had taken her to a Fae festival. I swear those muggles don’t know what kind of magic they’re messing with.”

“So it’s not a thing?” Harry asked. It would be easier if it wasn’t, but something about how the magic went into the earth and pulled away from the Stone Circle kept bringing his mind back to a term he had only heard as a child in the Muggle world. 

“I’m not saying that, darling,” Andromeda replied. “It’s just the Muggles, they don’t know what they’re really scrapping at, I would say. Ley lines or fairy paths, these are what muggles might use to put some sort of meaning to the magical world.”

“So, what are they called in our world?” Harry asked.

Andromeda smiled gently, almost pityingly. “Harry, dear, they’re not called anything. We’re magic, we just…” she trailed off in thought. “Of course, in a way, we could call it a river.”

At Harry’s flummoxed look, she sighed. “I know, Harry, I’m not making it easier for you, but if you’re interested, I know some Black family family history that Aunt Lucretia and Aunt Dorea taught me. Soon, I promise. Let me see if I can find some old histories of the family, and I’ll explain it.”

They sat in the kitchen and had a spot of herbal tea and talked more about life around the house. Kreacher walked in scowling and pulled a bucket and rags from the cupboard. He croaked something about the stained glass in the library singing again, and he left the room.

Harry sighed. The sodding library spanned more than ten times as deep as it did the months that Harry, Hermione, and Ron had squatted in the bottom floors of Grimmauld Place. It was a maze of rows and rows of books. The beauty of Wizarding Spaces was almost comical to Harry when he entered the grand room on the second floor because logically the house was a terrace house. 

The library, Andromeda explained when she first moved in, was infamous. 

Old Phineas Nigeullus Black had apparently known what he was doing when he established the home at Grimmauld Place. While he was Headmaster of Hogwarts, he had used what was proprietary spell knowledge of the Hogwarts Library and surreptitiously copied it, turning his own home into a private depository library for all new Magical books but at the same time avoided the issues of ownership and copyright by limiting the audience to his own blood family.

Family only could truly navigate the shelves, and the library was sentient in a very judgmental manner. It didn’t weigh you based on blood metrics, it based its measure of you based on what it felt you could do for the Black family. Harry wondered how it would have measured Sirius.

“And you think the silver would look good against the green?” Andromeda asked. “It’s not too Slytherin for you?” She teased him.

“Ha ha,” Harry deadpanned. “It’s the library, Andromeda. It needs updating. The wood at least needs to be stained again. Something’s probably still living in one of the bookcases at the front.”

“Probably puffskeins,” Andromeda replied. “Aunt Walburga used to breed these beautiful plush grey ones.”

Harry nodded and cupped his tea in his hands. He felt as though he had a thousand things to plan and barely any time to breathe. Valentine’s was this weekend, and he had plans with Gin in Holyhead. Work on Saturday to make up for the shift change. He had to refile another appeal with Neville on their cold case. He plans with Draco bloody Malfoy the following week. Ginny’s first game of the season was the following week too, and he hadn’t even begin to think of when he could begin research on blood rituals or fertility rituals. He needed to contact the Vampires, but how could he find time to search for any of the ones that walked London? And what about Teddy? How much time could he have with his kid? It wasn’t fair to him that Harry was busy. 

He sighed deeply. His mind ached when just thinking about putting together a to-do list. 

“I need some books on ley lines. Could you take Teddy to Waterstones tomorrow and pick some up?”

“I thought I wasn’t your secretary, Harry, dear.” Andromeda teased. “We’ll go. Teddy will enjoy the walk.”

As Harry and Andromeda began to make the walk towards the stairs where the bedrooms were to go check on Teddy, they both stopped abruptly.

There was a large, ornate wooden door standing where there was only a wall before. 

Surprisingly, the brown door matched the new décor and was etched in many sigils that Harry had only seen in one of Hermione’s advanced Ancient Runes textbooks, but across the center of the door was the Black family crest, the three ravens, and the motto not in French, but in Latin: _Semper Pura._

Harry put the back of his hand on the door and quickly pulled it back. The back of his hand was white, and he shook it out to get the blood moving back. The door was so cold that it was like touching a block of ice.

“Someone’s been good,” quipped Andromeda. She held a hand out and quickly pulled it back. “This is for you. It doesn’t want me.” 

“How?” Harry breathed. 

There hadn’t been a new door appear at Grimmauld Place since the conservatory appeared a year and a half ago that finally allowed Harry access to the garden. Andromeda thought he had received it because the House was glad that Harry had gotten a new commendation at work. Harry privately thought it was because it was about the same time that Harry had met his first coven of Vampires in London, and the house somehow knew.

“What do you think is behind the door?”

“Perhaps Uncle Orion’s study?” She suggested. 

They were still using Aunt Walburga’s parlor room with her old writing desk for Harry’s office. It was off the second floor, and while Harry did enjoy the view of the park from the front windows, he could live without the angry glances the old painting threw him. It was, after all, a witch’s room.

“Sirius’s father,” Harry murmured. He touched the door gently. “What was he like? Sirius really didn’t talk about him much.”

“Uncle Orion was, well, he was much kinder than Aunt Walburga.” Andromeda said, thinking quietly to herself. “You have to understand Harry, that their marriage was quite shocking to most of society. Marriages that close just weren’t really done, but I suppose Orion did love Walburga. After all, it was for Walburga that he turned Grimmauld Place into the fortress that it is now.”

“Why?” Harry asked. Placing his hand back on the door, Harry felt the warmth of the magic under the woodgrain. It was warming to his touch.

“Ah, well, I’m not quite sure, to be honest. Lord Grandfather Arcturus was fighting off Acolytes and other Alliance members in Europe most of the time. After she graduated in 1945, she and Aunt Lucretia went to join him in Paris. Young witches were always needed to help pass information on in the Resistance.” Andromeda explained. “Father once hinted that something horrible must have happened, so when Arcturus brought her back to this house soon after Grindelwald was defeated, she just never left, quite literally I might add. She was married to Orion in the conservatory, gave birth to Sirius and Regulus upstairs in the master bedroom, and supposedly died in her parlor room, your office.”

Harry blinked. Maybe there was a bit more about the mad painting than he thought. “Wait, you’re telling me that Arcturus Black fought against Grindelwald’s forces?”

“Oh Darling, what do you think earned him his Order of Merlin? He and Charlus Potter had Undesirable warrants out for them, ordered by Grindelwald himself.”

Harry felt momentarily confused, like a bucket of ice water had been dropped on him. How had he never looked into his family’s history? He knew more about the Blacks than the Potters, and even less about the Evans line despite his Aunt still being alive. He knew that Charlus Potter and his wife Dorea Black weren’t his grandparents, but to hear the name Potter when Harry had no idea of the depth of the relationship sent a spike of unease in himself. How was Sirius not proud of his Grandfather? How was he not interested enough in his own family history?

Harry took a deep breath. 

There was a pop, and Kreacher stood behind Harry. “The door won’t open for Master Harry, yet. The Portrait woke up, but it’s not time yet to meet the old Head of the Family just yet.” He looked between the two. “Go to bed, Master Harry, Mistress Andromeda. Kreacher will take care of things down here tonight.”

Harry sighed it had been a long and busy day with enough surprises. He made his way up to Teddy’s room to tuck him back under the covers, refresh the night light charm, and made his way to his own bed with a vial of dreamless sleep.

He was not going to even chance a nightmare of Voldemort and Bellatrix fucking on the stone altar, not after drinking as much as he had tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> Both _Star Wars_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ had a bit of resurgence in popularity at this time. For the _Star Wars_ saga, the first two prequells were out by 2003, and by December 2003, the final novel in the _Lord of the Ring's_ trilogy, _The Return of the King_ , was slated for its movie premiere. 
> 
> In addition, if you have not had the chance to read Aslotat's [House Proud](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6177703), please do so. It's a staple read for anyone who loves the idea of a sentient magical home.


	7. A Crack in the Cold Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry catches a break in his cold case and meets an old, familiar face. 
> 
> Warning: This chapter does discuss real world political events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited: 26/02/2021

London in mid-February was full of anger and misery. 

For once, the cold didn’t bring it. There’s rain, but that’s fairly normal for England this time of year. It’s not the air, which is crisp but not freezing. 

It’s the thousands upon thousands of Muggles that had descended into the city, protesting and marching in the streets. Their collective anger and indignation over the Muggle government dragging the country into another questionable war far across the globe. 

Harry already knew how despised the Labour Party was in the Dursley household, but it seemed that even the Labour Party itself wasn’t pleased with Tony Blair’s apparent stance of interventionism and the looming coming of foreign war in Iraq.

Harry watched as the chants washed over the crowd. Muggles were alive and animated in their anger over injustices in ways Wizards never were.

A shame really, he thought. It had taken two wizarding wars in their hidden section of the country for them to push any semblance of equity, and Harry wasn’t even sure if they were getting it right. Andromeda was always so kind to remind him that all he could do is the next right thing. And so, Harry pushed onward, continuing to help those on both sides of the war, striving for some sort of fairness that even he couldn’t fully explain.

As he made his way into Whitehall, Harry was struck by the sounds of protests rising from the cold morning. He knew there was a big protest today in Hyde Park, but he was surprised that he could hear the roar of the crowd a few kilometers away over the normal London morning traffic.

The red telephone box of the Visitor's Entrance stuck out in the cold. A few metres away, the entrance into the Underground filled and backed up, spilling scores of muggles into the street. There would be no pushing through to the entrance.

Making his way briskly down the block, Harry stepped into another telephone box and closed it. A wandless and nonverbal notice-me-not charm and a twist of his hips later, Harry appeared in his office.

Neville was already there. 

“You okay, mate?” His partner asked, wiping the remains of his breakfast off his mouth. 

Harry nodded stiffly. He was overworked and tired. 

Three days ago, Draco bloody Malfoy had dropped a metaphorical shaken up and hexed bag of doxies onto his lap, and Harry had to pick up and carry on knowing that Voldemort was still a constant in his life after his defeat. He hadn’t seen his wife in four days due to her practice schedule. Then, a whole new room appeared in his home, and Harry had another unknown portrait in his home. Everything was bonkers.

“It’s going,” he said. “Just a lot of stuff coming up, Teddy’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, and Andromeda and I are planning out the restoration of the library at Grimmauld Place. Oh, and I discovered a new but locked room in the house. It’s just crazy right now.”

Neville hummed. He was fumbling with a couple of folders to hand over to Harry. “You’re still living there?” He asked, sounding confused. “I thought Ginny had talked you out of it?”

“What?” Harry looked up in surprise. “What, no? I mean, it was a dump when I inherited it, but it’s mine.”

Neville then looked up confused. Harry tried to remember when Neville had talked to Ginny last, but the last time they all had gone out together was two months ago, at the large Gryffindor Alumni Christmas Party that was held in Hogsmeade.

“Wait, what does Gin have to do with it?” Harry asked. “She’s up in Holyhead most nights. She doesn’t want to make the jump from West Wales to London.” Harry explained, trying to start combing through his folders. 

If anyone walked into their office, Harry wanted to make it look like he had been there for a while, before the large morning walk-in for the shift change.

Neville, bless him, still looked confused, but now he looked uncomfortable. “Um, well, Harry, I hate to tell you this, but when we all met at the pub a couple of nights ago, Ron and Hermione were telling us that Ginny had talked you into giving Grimmauld to Andromeda so that you guys could find a place closer to her parents’ house in Devon.”

Harry frowned, feeling stunned. He looked down at the paperwork as a way to try to remember what he and Gin had talked about last. Her ever busy schedule was a given, but there was something about the Diggorys selling a large parcel of their land as a last ditch effort for some potion treatment that Mrs. Diggory wanted to try. Harry’s mind had tried not to focus too hard on the conversation the moment when Ginny had brought up Cedric’s parents.

“Neville, I haven’t spoken to Gin about this. She knows how much effort I’ve put in fixing up Grimmauld Place,” said Harry, trying to defend himself for whatever reason. “Andromeda’s been teaching me how to work with a magical home. The house is of the Black family, and Andromeda’s been teaching me the family magic.”

Neville paled. He leaned over his desk, and something serious on his face made Harry lean over his own to share whatever secret Neville thought was so important. “Harry,” he whispered. “If the house is sentient now, do not let Ginny start talking about leaving with the two of you in it. It could eat her and you if it finds your conviction lacking.”

Harry blinked and let out a startled laugh. For a moment he was transported back to his first feast at Hogwarts, with Dumbledore telling the students in the Grand Hall not to enter the third floor corridor or face a painful death. Neville stared at him hard, unblinking, and Harry let out another nervous laugh. Oh Merlin, Neville was serious.

“For what it’s worth,” Neville added, “I would never leave Grimmauld Place either. Sure London can be a buzzkill, but we’re wizards. We can go anywhere. Ginny hates it because her mum hates it.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Molly hadn’t willingly stepped into his home for two years; the last time being when Ginny had officially moved in after they had gotten married for a celebration party. 

It was also the first night that Harry realized that Molly didn’t really seem to like Andromeda. She was cordial, yes, but years living in the Dursley household always made him very aware of when someone was only just tolerated. 

Andromeda seemed to notice as well, but Harry and Andromeda tried not to talk about it, seeking to keep the peace. Molly didn’t act that way towards Teddy, so neither of them really didn’t walk to kick that bag of doxies just yet.

“They hate it because it’s the Black family home,” Harry said as he pulled the muggle forensic file that detailed the office in which Amelia Bones died.

“But he was your godfather right, Sirius Black?”

Harry nodded. He didn’t look at Neville, choosing to look at his open file. 

Sirius was always a complicated topic for Harry, and as of last year or two, now that Teddy was so talkative and mobile, Harry always found himself falling into a what-if game if Sirius had raised Harry, especially when his caseload was light it seemed like he would have to double his sessions with Anne. Harry never wanted to carry the wounds of his childhood onto Teddy, and Anne was always ready to help Harry address whatever Harry felt was important enough for their sessions.

“Yes,” Harry choked out, “It’s the only thing I really have left of him besides memories.”

Neville frowned and added, “Then they could carry my dead body out of that house. Witches, I swear. She knew what she was getting into when she married you, right?”

Merlin, what was with everyone dying in their homes? Harry thought to himself. Was this just another wizarding quirk that he hadn’t realized yet?

“I had been living there with Andromeda and Teddy for two years at that point. Her house was partially destroyed in a Snatcher raid when they were looking for her husband. He was a Muggleborn,” Harry explained. “When I left after the Battle of Hogwarts, the Burrow was just over run with people, with the security issues, and with Fred’s death hanging over the family, I got in contact with Andromeda, and we just, I don’t know, moved in together and raised Teddy together in an heavily fortified magical home.”

Neville pursed his lips together, and he knocked his knuckles on the table. “Ginny is going to meet a sticky end in that house.”

Harry let out a small laugh. It was not a happy one. “Ginny barely stays in the house. She only comes home on Mondays and Tuesdays when they don’t have practice up at Holyhead. During the season, I usually go up to Holyhead half the week. On off season, we go on holiday or visit her family.”

Neville frowned. “Harry, that’s not how she was raised, and you know it,” complained Neville. “Arthur Weasley Apparated over two hundred and fifty kilometers a day, twice a day, five days a week since he was eighteen years old, and he did it with a smile on his face.”

Harry smiled. Arthur and Molly had used that line on Ginny and the rest of the Weasley kids so many times that it was a running joke among the kids and their friends, but it still rang true: Arthur really Apparated from Devon to London for work, and he did it without complaining to Molly about it.

Ginny could Apparate from Holyhead to Ottery St. Catchpole or from Ottery St. Catchpole to London, but she couldn’t do the jump from Holyhead to London. The distance was too long for most witches and wizards though, so Ginny usually just used the Floo to travel longer distances. Even Hermione or Ron couldn’t Apparate that far either, and they lived in Devon near the Burrow. 

“I know a lot of things, Nev, but I can’t really change it. Teddy is my child, and he deserves to be brought up in a home full of his family’s magic. I’m trying to do what’s best for him with his Grandmother. And the way Ginny goes on,” Harry paused, his throat sticking. Neville’s eyes were sympathetic. Neville would understand. “He may be my only child.”

Neville sighed. He closed the files and took a drag of coffee. 

“She’s young, and she’s got an athletic career. Flying chaser like that, and the way Gwenog Jones beats them into shape, she’s got ten great years but only ten more good ones.” Neville replied.

Harry rubbed his eyes in frustration. It was always one more season for Ginny, and that next year, she’d be even bigger news. “You sound like Arthur defending her to Molly.”

“Molly Weasley is Ginny’s problem, and she shouldn’t be taking her parents’ hang-ups and projecting it on you.” Neville said, looking a bit cross on Harry’s behalf.

Good old Neville, Harry thought and smiled at his friend. “Now you sound like my therapist,” Harry teased. Neville leaned back in his wooden chair, looking a bit pleased at that.

“Well, Anne’s a smart lady, so I’m honored.” Neville simpered, pushing his blond hair out of his face.

Harry rolled his eyes and lifted the case file up. He read over the information about Amelia Bones’ home again and sighed.

Merlin, they knew where the house was. They just couldn’t access the damn place. 

Neville and Harry had been run off last month by a Muggle police officer already for loitering around the very posh Westminster neighborhood. Every time they got close to the building, it was like they walked into the kitchen and checked the icebox and forgot what they were looking for. 

It was frustrating, and all the notes Harry had on the property, reminders of what he was doing, didn’t help him remember what he was doing while he was in the middle of trying to walk on the property.

“Harry, do you have that letter from Susan? Did the Bones house elf die? I can’t find it in my notes.”

“Hmm?” Harry looked up from Kingsley’s prewar Auror report. “Oh, no, it’s in the pile there on your desk, yup, with the autopsy report. It won’t do you any good. The elf won’t take anyone inside the property. Goes against old orders. She doesn’t know the way inside except for magically.”

Neville groaned. “Merlin, I thought I had something.”

Harry flipped the parchment over. 

Wizards couldn’t access the property, house elves couldn’t access the property, and that put Harry in a bind. If a house elf couldn’t access the property, then other magical beings most likely couldn’t either. He couldn’t risk asking a Dark being, who knows what Madam Bones had charmed against them. Grimmauld Place had similar spells and enchantments against even Muggles walking up to the property.

Harry nearly gasped out loud. 

SECTION 31. 

He wrote in large letters across the top. 

Muggles were the ones who found her body first place, not Aurors. The address was flagged at the Met, and Kingsley was rerouted there after his shift at Downing Street.

Of course, in 1996, when Amelia Bones had died, Section 31 hadn’t existed then, but since 2000, those police officers that were forced to sign Section 31 forms that excluded their records from ever being accessed by the Freedom of Information Act allowed for Aurors to use Muggle police to help in an investigation. However, more often than not, it was Section 31 contacting the Auror Department on a “weird” case. 

The best part was that there were no forms, and nothing for Robards to deny him access to, like he had done with the Department of Mysteries. Section 31 was on record and any Auror could contact the department. Thank goodness that Robards hadn’t even blinked an eye at limiting contact with the Section 31, but then again, most Wizards just dismissed Muggles anyway. 

Neville leaned back in his chair and pulled the remains of his breakfast sandwich and hot drink close to the edge of the table. 

“Do you want to, I don’t know, do some more reconnaissance?” He asked, seemingly inching to get out of the small office they shared. “They’re always a back door to these types of death charms.”

The back door was asking Section 31 to take them to the property because no Death Eater or Sympathizer would willingly work with the Muggle Metropolitan Police.

Bones knew what was coming, so she needed to plan around Voldemort. 

“I’ve got it!” Harry exclaimed, standing up to grab his coat. “Did Kingsley have a list of muggle police that were on the property?”

Neville’s mouth fell open, and he shuffled through a few pieces of paper in his copy of Kingsley’s first report. 

His cup fell to the floor, and Harry’s magic caught the cup as the liquid spun in the air, funneling up and over both of their heads before pouring back in Neville’s righted back mug. 

Neville, so used to Harry’s wild magic, just absently thanked him as he split another pile in half trying to find the old report from years past.

“No, no,” Neville mumbled. "Here!” He exclaimed. He pulled a paper close to his face to read it. “He references a Detective Wensley, but the other officers aren’t named.”

Harry smiled widely. “We have a name though. I know that old man’s been Section’ed. He’s worked a few cases with some of the old guard Aurors.” 

Harry knew Frederick Wensley had a very colorful and long history with the Metropolitan Police. He’d meet up with Harry and Neville if they went down to Scotland Yard.

Neville blinked, and he fell back into his chair relieved. “We need to go back out.”

Harry nodded. “We can today, but there’s going to be a lot of Muggles out. There’s a big demonstration going on throughout the city. We’ll have to keep a low profile.”

“POTTER! LONGBOTTOM!” Came the cry from out the hall. “Get your arses out here, we have a DMM.”

Neville grabbed his coat. “Merlin,” he groaned. “And we were so close to leaving? What half baked conspiracy is Robards going to suss out now?”

Harry and Neville made their way through the grey tiled walls of the Auror’s Office and up to the large open bullpen in the middle of the open main office. Several Aurors and training Aurors nodded and waved at Harry, and the two partners made their way to the edge of the crowd, closest to the main exit. Neville was practically vibrating to get out into the cold February air. Harry just wanted to get out of Robards’ sight.

Gawain Robards and Harry Potter did not have the best working relationship.

When the dirt and dust of the Battle of Hogwarts settled, Robards had the fortunate standing as the former Head Auror under the short-lived Scrimgeour administration and had zero ties to the Dark Lord, his Death Eaters, and known Sympathizers to the cause. However, Robards did not like Kingsley asking for the personal favor of allowing all of the 1997 Hogwarts class to be given special privileges that they would normally never allow in candidate Auror admissions. Robards had never really forgiven Harry for slighting him in the months after Dumbledore’s death by refusing to interview with him then when Scrimgeour was Minister of Magic.

Harry did not like Gawain Robards because he looked and acted far too much like his Uncle Vernon. Harry had lived with it for the first seventeen years of his life, and by Merlin, he just couldn’t take it without some wise-arse look or comment now. 

The walrus mustache and jowls the older man had always seemed to fling some type of crazed indignation out of Harry. But, maybe it was because Harry was so young, at just twenty-two, and already so jaded, that Harry just could not take the man seriously with the corny jokes and the barking of orders. If Scrimgeour was the Old Lion of the pre-war Aurors, then Gawain Robards was the Sea Lion. Robards was a yapping joke. 

Neville and Ron had described the situation once to Ginny and Hermione that the two of them, Robards and Harry, just fed off of each other’s dislike of the other. 

Robards thought Harry didn’t deserve the chance to be an Auror because Harry had already snubbed his only chance. To Robards, there were no second chances in the fast paced world of an Auror. Wizards lived and died by the wand, and Robards didn’t want a wizard that couldn’t make decisions in the moment. Harry Potter was just another famous face who, unfortunately for Robards, continued to outperform all expectations for an Auror of his year and rank. 

Harry’s detective work in the solved labeled cold cases was incredible to those in the Wizengamot and the DMLE. The typical solve rate for a labeled cold case for a seasoned Auror, which Harry wasn’t, languished at a solve rate about one every year or two, and usually it was only solved because there was a deathbed or Veritasium confession during the prosecution of another crime. Harry and Neville had solved three cases alone in the last year after the enforced reassignment due to Harry’s botched kidnapping.

Robards, of course, had blamed Harry for having the most infamous post-war Undesirable Death Eaters forcibly kidnap him when he was off duty with his friends at a pub in Ireland, of all places. 

Rasbatan Lestrange didn’t survive the wand fight. Harry’s magic had reacted most violently and frozen the ground and building, and during the fight, part of the building collapsed, crushing the man to his death. Now the official first permanent resident of Azkaban, Roldophous lived but only had one working arm. Harry had taken his wand arm with his magic, freezing the flesh and burning it black before shattering it completely. 

Kingsley had to step in on Harry’s behalf when the questions began on what spells Harry had used to do it. There had been no record on Harry’s wand for any type of freezing charm or bludgeoning hexes. Kingsley had that report shuttered away. 

So, Harry did have a problem with Robards. 

Harry was reassigned to what most Aurors would find to be an insulting career-ender, especially as Harry’s last assignment had been with the Minister’s Guard. 

It was exceedingly difficult to process cold cases by way of magical means; however, to Robard’s displeasure, Harry was very adept at needling away at a mystery as he often found himself the center of one in his formative years at Hogwarts. As such, Neville and Harry had the highest solve rate in cold cases in over a hundred years. 

The Death of Amelia Bones would be a case that would be discussed for and written about for years. One literal ghost in the ghost writing department at Obscurus Books had even begun to haunt the two of them whenever they would linger too long in the South Side of Diagon Alley, but luckily with one meeting with the main office, the ghost did leave them alone. 

But as Harry and Neville stood waiting for case assignments and updates to go out, they just listened to the enclosed disaster that was circling around them. Harry knew that the moment that he and Neville stood in the pen, that he was going to have another flobberworm of a morning. They were both itching to leave the Auror’s Office and head out in that cool, crisp, and crowded February air.

Robards had of course reported on the Muggle protests, warning anyone going out on a beat in London to be aware, but he totally missed the quaffle in warning of possible threats and dangers that the Aurors might find themselves against if they walked around the Muggle protestors. 

People in London wouldn’t have muggle guns, did Robards think this was in America? Harry wanted to roll his eyes, because while Harry didn’t follow the muggle news as closely as Hermione or Andromeda, he still understood why people were protesting what many thought was an illegal war with no threat to British interests. 

Harry felt his magic shuffle on his shoulders in agitation, and his mood plummeted.

“Finally, as some of you are coming off on your lover’s highs,” Robards sneered to some of the jeering older Aurors, “Yesterday, of course was Valentine’s Day, and we had two fights at—”

The floor dropped out from under Harry. 

Oh Merlin’s saggy and hairy balls, he had forgotten about Valentine’s Day. A cold chill ran down Harry’s spine, and for once, it wasn’t his magic. 

How could he zone out on the last few days like that? With everything going on around with, with, and Harry could not think of a single excuse. Ginny was going to be furious. She was going to kill him. The whole point of him having this be his on-Saturday was to make up for planning to take the day with Ginny in Holyhead.

“St. Mungo's reported another poisoning last night. Halfblood male, age 32, was forcibly Side-Along Apparated to the hospital. He is listed in critical, but stable condition.”

“Do the Healers know what he was poisoned with?” Demelza Robins asked. She had played a year of Quidditch with Harry before he left Hogwarts. They really didn’t talk much after Harry turned her down for the Auror’s Intramural Quidditch team. He had a broom, but flying was much harder for him now, tainted with memories of ash and spellfire. 

Quidditch was Gin’s thing now, and Harry was okay to let her have it.

Robards coughed, his huge mustache twitched on his face. He looked down at his notes. 

Harry sighed quietly. He despised love potion cases and knew how this case play-out. Another love potion where no charges would be filed because there truly was no crime committed, despite the bodily harm. Others would goad the wizard into forgiving the witch and going on a date, because wasn’t it so sweet that she cared enough to potion him? Anyone should be so lucky to have someone commit a huge ethical violation because of a lustful obsession.

“The victim is still unconscious, but he began to exhibit worrying, obsessive behavior shortly before foaming at the mouth and vomiting, which is why his uncle forcibly apparated him.”

So, the potion had worked, the normal side effects reported, but something in the batch had turned the potion once it settled in the system. This was a two part assignment: issue a warning to the sender of the potion and track down the origin of ashwinder eggs to determine if they were used knowingly old or rotten in the potion. 

Harry didn’t dare say anything just yet in the meeting because he knew Robards would assign him the case in spite if he spoke. He had a bad feeling that he had seen this before. He’d check in on Demelza if she was given the case.

Merlin, what if Demelza already spoke to Ginny? 

They were schoolmates together, and Demelza was also dating a witch on the Holyhead squad too. 

Harry wanted to leave right now, but Robards was entertaining questions. Harry looked down at his shoes, away from Robards and Demelza. He had royally fucked up.

Harry’s magic seemed to vibrate in the air, and Neville elbowed Harry sharply in the gut. 

Harry spent the rest of the meeting zoning out, trying to think of how he could explain to Gin how he had spent Valentine’s Day without her. That he had taken Teddy to the National History Museum to look at dinosaur skeletons in the morning when he should have been having lunch with Gin on the Harbourfront. Then, in the afternoon and late in the evening, he had spent the day cross referencing ley lines, astronomy, and blood rituals and reading the book given to him by Draco bloody Malfoy while he and Kreacher took turns caring for Teddy while Andromeda stayed in her rooms, and oh Merlin, he forgotten about Andromeda. 

Holidays were always so rough on her, but Valentine’s was the worst. She and her late husband were married on Valentine’s Day, and it was the last day she had seen him alive before he was killed the following month, weeks shy of his only grandson’s birth. 

Harry felt a curl of misery sink in his gut for not realizing his inaction to plan and help out for two of the most important women in his life.

When the meeting let out, Harry and Neville rushed out of the Auror’s Office and up the lift. When they were alone, Neville asked Harry what was going on in the meeting.

“I forgot it was Valentine’s Day yesterday,” Harry replied.

Neville sucked in a breath.

“Merlin, Harry,” Neville signed, pushing back his hair. His blond hair had been cropped shorter in the back, but the slight curls that Neville had were longer in the front. “Well, I hope you liked your sinuses the way it is now, because when Ginny gets in aiming distance...” His voice trailed off. 

As they entered the daylight, Neville clapped Harry on the shoulder. The taller man pushed on Harry gently, seemingly understanding that Harry needed some grounding from his intrusive thoughts.

London was practically crawling with Muggles. They were practically shoulder to shoulder across the street, and the noise was almost deafening. 

“Getting to the Yard is going to be a nightmare.” Harry yelled absently, looking around at the people marching in the street.

Neville grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him back into the phone booth.

“Apparate us.”

“Merlin, Neville, it’s crawling with muggles outside.” Harry complained.

“We’re two guys chilling in a phone booth, Harry, just Apparate us before any Muggles notice us.”

Harry grabbed Neville around the waist. Neville grinned widely and wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders. He mumbled something about how Neville was an insufferable prat and focused on his destination. 

Scotland Yard would be crawling with muggles, with the area so close to Parliament. Harry focused on his mental map of London, trying to think of a quieter, more secluded spot in the busiest city in the United Kingdom.

“My hero,” Neville simpered, and Harry rolled his eyes, twisting them across London to St. Ermin’s Hill, only a few minutes walk to the Met. Quickly, he pushed Neville against the stone wall and put up a fast Muggle-Repelling Charm. Harry turned his head to look down the street. He should have aimed for the Dacre Street. There were less Muggles near the Feathers, even if they’d have to make their way across Broadway Street. 

They looked around. Muggles were everywhere, and Harry knew they needed to blend in and get out of Wizarding wear. They quietly transfigured their clothes from the Auror red to black and white uniform. While it wasn’t a complete match to the muggle police uniform, it was close enough to be ignored. 

Harry adjusted his new peaked hat, and Neville whistled. “You clean up nice, Chief Inspector.”

Harry shot Neville a two-finger salute of his own. Neville laughed and followed Harry.

Making their way to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Harry and Neville watched the crowds. The tall, glass and metal of the building made it stick out among all of the stone and concrete. Making their way to the police barricades, Harry and Neville were unquestionably waved in.

They made their way to the information desk. The young man behind the counter asked to see their credentials, and upon looking at the bewitched badges became both confused but polite. The small wonders of magic, Harry thought to himself. However, the young man paled when Neville asked for directions to Section 31, and he asked Harry and Neville to wait before calling up and giving their names.

“We usually don’t get people asking for Section 31,” the young man hesitantly said. “Is there a specific person you are looking to speak to?”

Neville shot Harry a quick look.

“I believe my mentor was speaking to a Detective Frederick Wensley.”

The young man laughed. “If only, the man’s been dead for—“ The phone rang, and the man picked up, blanching even whiter when told who was on the other line. “Yes, I’ll direct them up.”

Harry felt hope grow for a moment. Even if Wensley had died in the last few years, whoever was in Section 31 would help them get into the old Bones Residence.

As Neville and Harry made their way up the lift, Neville looked around. He would be the first to admit that he didn’t often get to adventure into non-magical buildings and areas.

“It’s still amazing that Muggles can build all of this without magic.” He said quietly to Harry. “I get the stone and concrete, but metal and glass? What an undertaking.” 

Harry smiled. It was one of the many good things about Neville. For a guy who grew up in the wizarding world, he never dismissed what a muggle could do.

After a few minutes of silence, the young man stopped and told them that this was as far as he was allowed to go, before turning around and leaving them in the middle of the hall. 

Harry and Neville looked down the hall. The grey sky of the world outside filtered into the hall around them, and Harry could see the Muggles looking like ants in the streets. As they walked in silence down the glassed hall, Harry felt something squeeze on him. 

He stopped. 

There was magic here, but he couldn’t tell what charm it was for a moment. Harry tapped the side of his chest where his wand was hidden in the holster. Neville nodded. They made their way forward down the sparsely decorated hall.

“Muggle-repelling charm, here?” Neville asked. “What a fat lot that’ll do us, Harry.”

Harry shook his head. “No, if the Muggle is let in on the secret, he’ll know, just get a bit muddled walking in. This is to keep the rest of the Muggles out of this area. Section 31 is known, well, they’re known for their secrets.”

Finally, the two made it to the end of the hall. The frosted glass door simply read SECTION 31 in black print.

Neville knocked on the office door. Harry and Neville could hear a chair scraping across the floor and heavy footprints on the ground. A tall body appeared behind the white frosted glass. Whoever was behind the door was a huge guy.

The young man standing at the office door was the same age as Harry and Neville. With a short crop of blond hair and watery blue eyes, the man seemed shocked and pleasantly surprised at the drop in. 

There was a small scar that cut across one of his eyebrows, but the eyes knew Harry. They locked in on one another, and in that moment, Harry knew the man as well but hadn’t seen him in what seemed a lifetime ago.

“Hello, Harry, it’s been a long while,” said the Muggle.

He stuck out a hand at Harry and smiled widely. Harry was momentarily struck dumb for a moment and reached out at shook his cousin’s hand.

Dudley smiled even wider and introduced himself to Neville.

“Constable Dudley Dursley.” He said, reaching to shake Neville’s hand, and Neville was quick to introduce himself and shake Dudley’s.

Harry really wanted to stare dumbly at his cousin. He hadn’t seen him since 1997, when he was crawling in the back of Uncle Vernon’s sedan.

“I’m the only 31 available during the daytime, so you’ll have to make due with me,” his cousin explained, “Let’s go into the break room, and you can fill me in on what the Auror Office needs of Section 31.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Egg: 
> 
> The real world political event I referenced in my warning was Anti-War Protests that happened on 15 February 2003. Over a million people reportedly marched in London on that day to protest in opposition to the imminent Iraq War. I was a young teenager at the time, but it was very amazing to see so many people around the world protesting. When I finally was able to visit London in 2005, I was amazed to see people still protesting the war outside Parliament. Of course, a lot of information came out after the fact about Blair and Bush's decision to go to war, but that's not really for this platform.
> 
> Section 31 is not an invention of my imagination, but it is apart of "The Magnus Archives." I highly recommend it if you're interested in horror anthology. If you're not familiar with the series, Section 31 is the branch that Metro Police are reassigned to if they see something a bit too paranormal. This is were I get my inspiration for Section 31 in this chapter.
> 
> Because he was an actual person that I am using in my fanfic, I want to take a moment and talk about Frederick Wensley. He is perhaps one of the most famous historical British Police officers and even worked on the Jack the Ripper cases at the beginning of his career in 1888. He had over 40 years of service to the Metropolitan Police Department when he retired in 1929.


	8. The Death of Amelia Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry deals with culmination of the cracked cold case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited: 27/02/21

Statement #AO1996ᛋ0717ᛋMCC

Recorded 15 February 2003

Statement of Chief Inspector Auror Harry Potter regarding the death of Madam Amelia Bones, former head of the DMLE from 1990-1996.

* * *

_It has been speculated for years about the death of Amelia Bones, the former Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Her death occurred on the night of the new moon, on 15 July 1996._

_The Bones address was flagged by the Auror Office at the change in London Metropolitan Police shifts on 16 July 1996. First Auror on scene was Auror Kingsley Shakebolt due to his proximity to location in Whitehall on muggle assignment, and existing charm structure suggests that use of his magic triggered the panic jinxes which at that point had not been triggered._

_Shacklebolt’s use of a Tracking Charm on 17 July is still considered standard procedure for any Auror case to recreate crime scenes, and it should not be viewed as a mistake in judgment. It is in my opinion that despite not being able to capture a spellcast by wand by the perpetrator, the magic of the Bones home knew magic was being cast in the home and tried to capture whatever magic it could. Shacklebolt’s wand cast was the first spell to be captured despite it being a known exception spell in a defensive charms matrix. At the time of portkey use, it is understandable that Shacklebolt feared a magical attack as defensive charm matrices are supposed to exclude Auror variant of the Tracking Charm._

_Shacklebolt’s primary field report and St. Mungo’s report of Splinching by way of Portkey failure is included in the case notes. In addition, included in the file are pictures and autopsy reports dated starting 17 July by Muggle police._

_Bones died locked in her office, which was further locked in her home in Westminster. The apparent cause of death is determined as the Killing Curse based on the lividity of the body and lack of serious injury premortem. The Muggle cause of death is listed as unknown, and Shacklebolt prevented the coroner from opening an inquest. Bones was interned at Kensal Green on 15 August 1996._

_Shortly after the time of attack, the property had been Time Capsuled Charmed, and Ms. Bones, who had been away at a sleepover with Hannah Abbott of Westminster, was barred from the property. The single female house elf Dolly returned twice to the property to remove food supplies for Auror Inspection per order of Minister Rufus Scrimgeour and to remove the property of Ms. Bones to attend her remaining years at Hogwarts in 1996. Dolly left the property to be employed by Hogwarts until Ms. Bones established residence in Chelsea._

_The investigation fell short due to lack of environmental evidence, and on 2 August 1997, Bones’ death was filed in the cold cases per orders from Minister Pius Thicknesse._

_On 21 December 2002, myself and Auror Neville Longbottom began refiling the case, and I received a copy of the Muggle police files from Metropolitan Police Superintendent Fredrick Wensley who is now Section 31._

_On 22 December 2002, Longbottom and I hit our first hurdle in the case: the discovery that the Bones home in Westminster had erected panic jinxes to lock out all wizards and witches. Surviving next of kin, niece Susan Bones of Chelsea, did not have information to dismantle the jinxes as at the time of her aunt's death, Ms. Bones was a minor. Longbottom and myself began using the Cursebreaker Method based on generality of charm knowledge._

_On 22 December 2002, Longbottom and I discovered the building itself was visible at a distance of 20 metres to wizards. However, the panic jinxed protecting the property confounded any magical being or wizard if they were knowingly going to the property._

_On 22 December and again on 6 January 2003, Longbottom and I were asked to vacate the perimeter of the property by local Muggle police; the latter escalated in a simple confounding hex to leave the area. On 13 January 2003, permission to seek use of an Occlumens of Known Merit within the Unspeakable Department was denied. Appeal was denied on 3 February 2003._

_On 15 February 2003, Longbottom and I traveled to 8 Broadway to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters to meet with Section 31 Muggle Police. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows for all Muggle police officers who sign the Section 31 form to be allowed to work provisionally with the Aurors Division. The Statue of Secrecy was further maintained due to the constable on duty having family within the Wizarding World. As there was no need for Wizarding Access Divulge Signatures forms, I made the decision to immediately update Constable Dudley Dursley of Barnet on the case._

* * *

Harry leaned back in his chair and set his quill in the inkwell. Rubbing his nose, he leaned back into his chair and sighed. His body ached. Harry felt a tendril of his magic rub against his neck and he sighed again.

Neville had gone down to the cafeteria to get the two of them a late lunch from the House Elves on duty.

He groaned and picked up the wrapped bag of ice and set it on the side of his cheek to cool the raw skin. The cold reactivated the balm, and Harry sighed as the pain melted away.

He knew how Amelia Bones died. He knew because he had seen her die. She had been hunted.

Harry closed his eyes. His face burned, and for a moment, he felt the sand slap across his face again. Once he was done writing this up, he and Neville would meet with their heads, Wlliamson, the new head of the DMLE; Robards, the Head Auror; and Kingsley, the Minister of Magic to debrief and receive closing signatures for the case.

Five hours ago, Harry stood in front of his cousin Dudley and was amazed at seeing the boy who had made his childhood hell. After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry did not seek out his aunt and uncle. His seventeenth birthday was the end of his life in the Muggle world.

With his aunt and uncle driving away the day before without barely a look goodbye, why would he subject himself any further to their hatred? But Dudley seemed so self-aware of what he and his parents had done to Harry growing up, and Harry felt his magic whisper soothing noises when Harry wanted to push back against being cordial to his cousin.

Harry wanted to move forward, not backward, with his life. Harry could be kind in the memory of callousness. Besides, Harry had made his own family: in Gin, in Hermione and Ron, the rest of the Weasleys, and of course in Andromeda and Teddy. He didn’t need the Dursleys anymore.

At the Met, Dudley had been nice enough as he walked Harry and Neville into the Section 31 offices. He filled Harry in about his life since the last time he and Harry had seen each other almost five years ago. Vernon had wanted Dudley to go to university and study engineering like he did (which surprised Harry because he had thought his uncle was just focused on business management). Dudley had not done well on his GSCE maths to get into an engineering program. Vernon was incensed that all that Smelting education had done nothing to get Dudley into a reputable program.

In the months of Dudley's final year at Smeltings, it had been his boxing coach who had told him that being a police officer or a military man would be a good fit for him, that Dudley needed structure. After a long gap year to figure out what he wanted and fighting with Vernon about it, Dudley went with what he thought would worry Aunt Petunia the least.

He enrolled at University of West London and floundered, sinking like a stone, and after a year, he had walked into the Met’s hiring office and applied. In the interview, one officer had asked for a list of his family, and Dudley had listed his cousin Harry Potter, the boy he grew up with. The next week, he was told he was hired and assigned to the newly minted Section 31. He laughed in remembrance when he told Harry and Neville that soon realised as to why.

“It’s funny how things work out sometimes,” Dudley explained. “Mum hated your world so much that she never thought past Little Whinging. That underneath it all, there was something magical about knowing it existed without really being a part of your world. Mum and Dad would lose their minds to know that knowing about your world is the only reason I got this job.”

Neville was silent, but Harry saw him glance at him, knowing what wasn’t being said between the two cousins. There was a reason why Harry liked Neville so much.

“Here,” Dudley said pointing to the small table and chairs. As he leaned back in his plastic office chair, the chair creaked and groaned ominously.

Harry could tell that fat and blubber wasn’t Dudley’s problem anymore; the man was simply jacked with muscles. Anyone with eyes could tell that by the way his white shirt uniform pulled and wrapped around his shoulders and back. An inch or so taller than Neville, and at least half head taller than Harry, Dudley filled his side of the table while Harry and Neville sat on the other side next to each other.

There was a small tea service set up. A kettle, some paper cups, tea bags, and sugar. It was by no means fancy, just the bare minimum swill found in most employee spaces, but caffeine was caffeine to Harry. He sighed and reached for the electric kettle, with a tap of his wand, water spouted from the tip, and he filled the well before turning the switch on to boil the water. He put his wand back in the holster as Dudley gasped, transfixed at the sight.

“Wow! Can you use that spell for anything else?”

Neville let out a huffing laugh, but Harry spoke first. “It’s got its uses. The _Aquamenti_ is a type of water-conjugation charm. It won’t keep you alive drinking it, but it does keep you comfortable for a bit.”

“Tell that to Greyback,” Neville said under his breath as handed Dudley an extra copy of the Met’s first report of the Bones case. Harry rolled his eyes and ignored the jab.

Dudley’s blue eyes scanned the paper over, reading slowly over the file. He sat in silence as he read, mumbling words under his breath.

The kettle whistled, and Harry pulled with his magic, wandless and silent, letting the paper cups land in front of the three men, and pouring the boiled water over the bags. Dudley looked excited to see magic move around him.

“So, she’s one of your lot,” Dudley said, earmarking one of the pages on the report, “and the last time anyone’s been in the house was the 17th of July in 96?”

Harry nodded. “Kingsley Shacklebolt took over the case from your Detective Wensley, and he tried to do a Tracking Spell to pick up any ambient magic. We believe it triggered a charm and jinx matrix which is supposed to capture anyone that attacks the owners of the home,” he explained. “He, um, teleported just in time, and his leg was hurt in the fast jump. The Wizarding hospital took care of him at that point. After that, the Auror Office was filled with new cases of attack, and the Bones Case was pushed back.”

Dudley hummed to herself and flipped through the images of Madam Bones, stiff as a board sitting on the floor and leaning back against the front desk. Dressed in her wizarding robe, She looked like a fancy doll that child had set down and never picked back up again. Based on the pictures, Harry and Neville believed she had died on her feet in front of her attacker, and the Killing Curse that cut her life short blasted her against her desk.

“And you have to go back because?” Dudley asked.

“We still don’t know who killed her,” Neville explained. “She had a very important job in our world when she died. She was one of us in law enforcement.”

Dudley nodded, satisfied with the answer, but then, he paused.

“Then why was it flagged in our system first and not yours?” Dudley asked, confused.

Harry had to give a point to him though, it was a good question to ask. For almost a full day, no one from the Wizarding World had made a serious effort to contact the deceased. It had been the Muggle Detective Wensley to lead the charge into the witch's home and discover her body.

Harry took his over sugared cup of tea and let the heat warm his hands. He had thought often of that night, piecing together Muggle pictures and Kingsley’s report. How did Amelia Bones’ murderer leave the building? Kinglsey set off the charm matrix when trying a Tracking Charm.

Unless, Harry thought hesitantly, unless the charm matrix is based on outward magic. Inward magic like wandless magic and Animagi could perhaps not set off the formidable charms and hexes. He couldn't see the only known Animagus in Voldemort's ranks having the nerve to take on a witch like Amelia Bones. It would have to be a witch or wizard with formidable power.

Harry clenched a hand tightly around the cup. He looked up just in time to listen to Neville explaining the deceased’s job and the situation at the time.

Neville sighed and leaned back into his chair. “At the time, there were a lot of anti-Muggle, well, anti-nonmagical wizards coming into power in—“

“That Voddermite guy?” Dudley asked as Neville let out a yelping laugh in surprise.

Harry laughed. “Sorry, Voldemort, but we’re burning daylight here, boys,” said Harry. “Dudley, we need you to walk us into the property. Once inside, we should be able to dismantle the protections in the home. Most likely the murder left some evidence behind in his desire to not trigger the protections.”

* * *

_The panic jinxes erected to protect the home from Wizarding influences were thorough and still powerful even almost seven years after the former Head of Family's death. Bones had introduced a hex to her spell defenses that did not confound Muggles away from the property, but instead, the hex confounded those with magic._

_At the time of her death with heightened anti-Muggle sentiment abounding, it is in this Auror's opinion that the deceased fashioned the spell to protect her family in the event of her death. However, with the speed in which she was attacked after the official reveal of the Voldemort and his terrorist group, the modified confounding hex and how to dismantle it was not taught to the next of kin._

_Longbottom and I employed the Muggle Constable Durlsey to lead us onto the property. Once granted access inside the home, Longbottom and I began to search the premises. Not mentioned in either the Muggle or Shacklebolt report were the small piles of sand found inside the locked front entrance to the home and inside and outside of the locked office door._

_Due to the small amount of time that the first Auror at the scene was able to collect information before the home shut him out, it is understandable why a small pile of sand escaped notice as Muggles had already transported the body out of the home and the first Auror on scene did not trigger any of the murder’s enchantments._

_Once making our way into the home, we were afforded more than enough time to determine where to recast Shacklebolt's Tracking Charm to determine the actions of the murderer. As it was still caught in the charm matrix defense of the Bones Residence, we had to take our time discerning if there were any other spells that could trigger. However, we were waylaid by a curse the murder set up in the home that was not triggered by Shacklebolt in 1996._

* * *

Harry found that he did not like walking through the Bones Residence. The tall ceiling and painted wallpaper seemed to loom over the three men like a giant mausoleum. The walls had beautiful painted horticulture scenes of magical plants and birds. A silent painted Augurey flew among the branches of magical ferns, watching Neville and Harry most intently. It had flown in from the parlor room the moment it had heard the three enter the home.

With his size and strength, Dudley had no real problems leading the two Aurors to their destination. However at ten metres from the doorsteps of the property, both Neville and Harry tried to walk off in opposite directions, making Dudley wrap a huge arm over each of the wizards’ shoulders and drunk-walking the two into the home.

In an overwhelming bit of mental magic to control himself, Harry reached out, straining with everything he could to fight the urge to leave quickly, and used his magic to open the lock on the door. His vision greyed, and he gasped like he couldn’t get enough air. Dudley dragged him inside by his collar.

Once inside, Harry barely had enough time to pull a sick bag from his long Auror jacket.

“You okay, Harry?” Dudley asked. Both taller blond men stood awkwardly as they waited for Harry to finish sicking up.

“Harry, well, Harry is more sensitive to magical influence, especially mental influences.” Neville tactfully explained as Harry sealed and set the bag by the front door because he didn’t want to risk a banishing charm to spell away the bag.

Harry frowned as he took in the mess of kicked up dirt on the doormat. However many muggle police that came in did a shit job making sure the crime scene was sterile because no House Elf would allow this much dirt to sit at entry.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled. “I was fighting not to Apparate for the last few minutes.” Neville nodded in understanding.

“So where now?” Dudley asked. “Do you need me to go first since I don’t have magic?”

Neville looked at Harry, who looked down the hall. It loomed darkly beckoning the three forward to discover the unknown.

Gently, Harry’s magic stretched forward. He could see down the hall, farther. He could hear the quiet steps, so sure in the satisfaction that one problem was about to be cut down. There was a gentle shuffling sound, like a quiet shushing that Harry had used for months to soothe an infant Teddy, and Harry could no longer hear the steps.

Harry’s magic pulled back, hard, to himself once more. Neville flinched and stepped back a step. Harry cleared his throat as Dudley looked between the two.

“No, I’ll go first. Neville, protect Dudley. Dudley, if you see something you think is important tell us but make sure we don’t act weird and try to wander off. If we act confused, grab us and take us back a room to see if that helps us. The office is down this hallway, second left, second door.”

Neville and Dudley nodded.

“Wands out,” Harry added as he stepped forward.

Harry could hear Dudley’s nervous breathing as they made their way though the home. The former head of the DMLE did not have much in the line of portraits, but the wizarding pictures amazed Dudley when he first saw them. Harry was a little shocked to see a picture of his parents standing near a couple dressed in wedding clothes.

“That’s Edgar and Sibyl, Susan’s parents.” Neville added. Harry didn’t recognize them but that made sense. Edgar at least he knew from Mad-Eye’s old stories.

“They were in the first Order, with mine and Neville’s parents.” Harry explained to a confused Dudley.

“Do, do all wizards know each other?” Dudley tried to tactfully ask.

Neville laughed, “No, it’s just, two generations of our families were active in the two wars against Voldemort.”

As they took two more steps down the hall, Harry felt magic slam into them.

It streamed between the three of them, and Harry pushed back hard. Neville put a hand between his friend’s shoulder blades to ground the two of them and felt the magic swirl around before focusing again on Harry’s defense, coming down hard on the two areas least protected, his face and hands. Harry’s magic trembled at his shoulders, bubbling up and over his arms, and Harry shoved.

Harry tried to keep his eyes open, but the magic was hot and small and biting around them. His skin felt like it was shredding off his face, and he heard his cousin scream.

Harry cursed, this was Dark magic, not any spell a Bones would layer.

 _"Protego Duo!”_ Harry cried, lifting his hands.

A green light emerged, bubbling over Harry’s open hands before encircling the three men. The pain lessened.

Pushing harder with his magic, Harry lifted his hands higher into the air and directed his magic out, out, out and further until it met and squashed the foreign magic against the tall ceilings.

He held it there as he took in a shuddering breath. He needed whatever the hell this magic was gone and fast. He could feel Neville pressed up against his legs yelling something, but Harry couldn’t understand him. His magic was roaring in his ears to push harder, one more time.

And Harry shoved.

There was a bang, and Harry felt the unknown magic crumble down the wall.

Harry fell back into Neville who caught him under his armpits. He hung there for a moment dazed before Neville straightened them both up. At the same time, Dudley cursed loudly as the sudden pressure change in the room knocked him back on his arse. He grabbed it reflexively. Jumping up, he strained to turn and look quickly to look at it before slipping on the piles of sand that covered the room around them.

“Fucking hell,” Dudley cursed. He picked up a handful and let the sand slip between his fingers. “Where the hell did all this shit come from?”

“What in Merlin’s name was that?” Neville asked Harry. He was coughing, shaking fine beige sand off of his clothes.

Harry’s mind jumped for a moment, trying to remember what they were doing right before the magic fell down upon them.

Neville was explaining to Dudley, and—

Harry’s magic trembled, and Harry heard a high pitched cackle echo in his memories. Amelia Bones would not stand in the Ministry of Magic after tonight. What a pathetic witch, muzzled by an even more pathetic Minister. It was like those worms wanted, begged to be ruled. How dare she say his name and call for his destruction, he who conquered even death?

Harry took a deep breath and gently touched his face. He pulled out and opened the small compact mirror he kept in his auror jacket and looked at himself. His face was all red in certain areas and looked like it had gone three rounds of rapid fire Scouring Charms.

“I think I have an idea who was here,” Harry said quietly.

“How?” Dudley asked. “We haven’t even made it to her office.”

“The home is under a Time Capsule Charm to protect the crime scene. Neville triggered a spell when he said a name, his name.” Harry added, looking pointedly at Neville who gasped.

Dudley looked between the two wizards and started to ask a question.

“Don’t say it! Don’t say his name!” Neville cried, slapping a hand over Dudley’s mouth. “Fuck me, he put up a taboo spell here?”

Harry shook his head as a no. “Bones’s death was before the Ministry fell. This was a booby trap to send a message.”

Dudley let out a long, drawn out curse of a single word. “How’d you figure it out?” He asked incredulously.

Harry smiled tightly at his cousin, but he still answered. “I tend to have a good sense on why Dark Wizards do what they do, Dudley. It’s why they put me in this job.”

Neville looked around the room, thinking. “This is retribution,” he explained. “Amelia Bones said his name in front of the Wizengamot, pledging that the DMLE would support Dumbledore’s plan to fight You-Know-Who head-on.”

“Yes,” Harry said simply. He did not tell either man about the joy Voldemort felt as he moved around the hall toward Bones’ office. “Come. It’s down the hall. Let’s finish this.”

* * *

_Based on a evidence of Shacklebolt's reanimated Tracking Charm, we determined that at approximately midnight on the night of 15 July, one male suspect approximately between six foot and one and six foot three inches tall based on gait of walk and wearing a black cloak entered the office by way of advanced human transfiguration._

_It is the opinion of this Auror, based on actions triggered in the course of the exploration of the Bones residence, that the Dark Lord Voldemort personally killed Bones. Voldemort is recorded at being six foot and two inches in height at the time of his death in May 1998. He is also the only known Dark Wizard active at that time to be able to use wandless self-transfiguration of the body as well as use advanced weather magic simultaneously. In addition, the Tracking Spell did capture a short view of the wand used to murder Bones. It was a long white wand with a handle like a bone which was very similar to the descriptions of Voldemort’s wand._

_Upon further exploration of known personal kills, the Bones case is strikingly similar to the torture and murder of the McKinnon Clan. However, unlike the McKinnon Clan case, there was no audience to bare witness to Voldemort murdering Marlene McKinnon. If niece Susan Bones was present in the home at the time of the attack, it is in this Auror’s opinion that Bones’ murder would be almost identical._

_Voldemort turned to terrorizing Bones instead, hunting down her in own home. A further exploration of the home yield three areas of high areas of Dark magic in the Bones home: the main hallway after exiting the foyer (crime scene A), the second hallway off the main hallway (crime scene B), and the Bones office and place of the attack (crime scene C). The only wand found on the property matched records of the Wand Record Office and were determined to belong to the deceased._

_Voldemort transfigured himself into sand and entered the home via the front door lock, pouring himself through the mechanism and entering the other side. Upon tracing his steps backward with the Tracking Charm, after entering the entry hall, he resumed his human-like form. With his hand, he twisted his palms and fingers in what is determined to be wandless spell casts. I believe at this point, once inside he put up an Anti-disapparition Jinx as well as a charm matrix trap to attack any witch or wizard in defiance of him, which Longbottom triggered that charms matrix in the main hallway after saying Voldemort's name a loud._

_Voldemort then re-transfigured himself into sand and began to quickly move through the home, using his magic to catapult him through a wind he self-created. We assume his first encounter with Bones was in the main hallway soon after entering the home as lingering spell damage to one wall nearest the entrance. His presence in the home pushed her back to a more defensive point and her only escape, her office. Bones retreated to her office, sealing the room. Her magic was found on the splintered door (note: in the Muggle police report, Muggle police physically broke down the office door), and her wand was later found under her desk near where her body was later found._

_Before Bones could make her way to the fireplace and perhaps Floo elsewhere, Voldemort entered the room via the lock again. Using his magic, Voldemort created a sandstorm inside the locked office, snuffing out the fire. He had her trapped. As the Tracking Charm when cast was over twenty four hours after time of death, it is unknown what was spoken between the two, but there was a conversation based on stillness of the two occupants until Voldemort, who was visibly angered, performed a Cruciatus Curse on Bones. Voldemort then killed Bones in her office, in front of her desk, with a single Killing Curse._

_At this point, the Tracking Spell begins to falter presumably due to the high influx of Dark Magic captured. Longbottom and I witnessed Voldemort rifling through Bone’s DMLE cabinet, but the Tracking Spell began to jump. Voldemort may have accessed her office files as they were linked to her files in her office in the Ministry of Magic. The O-Z file cabinet was the only file cabinet opened._

_After murdering her, Voldemort re-transfigured himself as sand and left the room through the locked doors of first her office and then her front door. Because self-transfiguration and other wandless magic cannot be captured by a defensive charms matrix, Voldemort was not held within the home._

_Voldemort knew the Bones home had several charm matrices that forbid outside magic once the Head of the Family died. Besides using his wand to cast the Cruciatus Curse and Killing Curse, at no point did the charms matrix record any other cast spellwork. He was able to use wandless self-transfiguration, weather charms, and time-delayed curses to attack any witch or wizard entering the home who would openly defy him._

_Bones lay in her office for approximately sixteen hours before discovery. Despite it being a Tuesday and missing several meetings, no one associated with the DMLE, Auror’s Office, or the Ministry of Magic visited the home to inquire on Bones's absence from no less that three high priority meetings. At approximately four-thirty in the afternoon, the Muggle Police entered the home. Bones had a meeting scheduled with Detective Frederick Wensley of the Metropolitan Police Department, and he grew concerned when she failed to show up to the meeting._

_The rest of information found in the Tracking charm is echoed in the Muggle police report as well as the Shacklebolt Report._

_For follow up, the Bones Residence will be returned to Susan Bones, her next of kin. Ms. Bones was informed by Longbottom as I returned Constable Dursley back to 8 Broadway. She will be able to move in two weeks after it is further inspected for any other curses and through cleaning by the Bones family elf. In the Deceased’s desk, Longbottom found the defensive charms matrix and undid the house’s spells. Included in the report is the copy of the charms matrix._

_While in the home, before the house charms matrix was lifted. I used a variant of the Protection Charm to protect Longbottom, Muggle Constable Dursley, and myself from Voldemort’s time-delayed hex. The use of sand to blind and burn his enemies is a known variant of a Egyptian Mummifying Curse. I overpowered my Protego Duo to create a larger, more durable shield to force the physical nature of the sand away from our bodies. By ceasing the curses movement, I was able to shatter the curse before it began to mummify our bodies._

* * *

“You want me to believe this swill, Potter?” Robards barked, throwing Harry’s report down on his lap. Behind Robard’s desk, Kingsley sat, deep in thought. “Let’s blame You-Know-Who?” The man continued on in a taunt.

The new head of the DMLE let out a short laugh, turning to the Head Auror. “Now, Gawain, this is the first time he’s used You-Know-Who as the perpetrator.”

Harry frowned at the two older men. He didn’t know Williamson at all really. He had been one of the only senior Aurors that somehow escaped judgement after the Second Wizarding War. Merlin knows Dawlish and Proudfoot had both been sanctioned heavily for following orders under Thicknesse, but Williamson had a young Muggleborn wife who he had smuggled along with several other Muggleborn witches out to MACUSA on the backs of hippogriffs.

Kingsley cleared his throat. “Do you have reason to think of a reason why your Chief Inspector would lie in a report? His write up is solid. Tracking Charms combined with a Time-Capsule Spell would still capture the magic inside the home, especially since I had used one within forty-eight hours of the initial death.”

Neville shifted next to Harry. “Sir, I was the one to say Voldemort’s name, and almost immediately we were cursed. If that doesn’t scream Voldemort, I’m not sure what would. We have three advanced magics being cast wandless. In 1996, one could do that but him and Dumbledore.”

“How did you cast the Shield Charm?” Robards speared fixing Harry with a glare. “Mummifying curses are almost instant. It would have snatched you three up until you were waterless husks.”

Merlin’s trousers. Harry swallowed. “The moment I felt the magic attack, I just pushed.”

“You _pushed?_ ” came Williamson's incredulous reply. “ _You pushed?_ What kind of response is that, Potter?”

“I pushed with my magic, and when it pushed back, I knew I had to shove it.” Harry explained. “That’s when I realized it was going around all three of us, hurting us. I used the _Protego Duo_ to push it so hard against the ceilings and the walls that I smothered the spell with my own magic.”

There was silence. Both Wiliamson and Robard’s jaws hung open, and Harry felt himself colour in embarrassment. He had done it again, used his magic in a way that most others could never.

“Shit,” said Kingsley, sounding a bit awed. “That’s one way to deal with it.”

Robards sighed and leaned back in the chair next to his desk. The man looked like he was going to blow his hair off the top of his head. Harry knew that if Kingsley hadn’t been there, Robards would be screaming at him. The man pulled at his mustache and wiped a hand down his face in agitation. Williamson looked like he wanted to ask more, but he didn’t dare say anything to agitate Robards.

Kingsley rubbed his face with his hands. “I hope I am not overstepping my bounds here, but Harry, Neville, you were very lucky. Mummifying Curses are fast acting Dark Curses and terrifyingly lethal. Normally, you would have to know Middle Egyptian or Demotic to begin to dismantle the curse. Do yourself a favor, Harry, and never ask your brother-in-law what they look like.”

Neville swallowed and looked over with a wild look in eyes at Harry. Harry tried not to think about it, but this was the first time Neville ever had a brush with death since graduating and working full time with the Auror Office.

His grandmother had personally demanded Neville, as the last of the Longbottoms, to be placed in mostly office work, which is why his promotion to the cold case files was not seen as much as an insult to Neville’s work ethic. As she was on the Wizengamot, her requests were granted. Neville had barely seen a wand fight outside training or when he ran off with Harry. Robards had welcomed it as having Neville around would keep Harry out of his hair.

It hadn’t worked.

“However, Potter, we have a bigger problem. You brought a muggle into an investigation,” grounded out Robards. “That’s a suspension,” he snapped.

“No, it’s not.” Kingsley evenly replied. “Section 31 is a new official branch, but they are allowed to know of the existence of the Wizarding World and work with us. Furthermore, and this goes no further than this office, gentlemen, but Dudley Dursley is Harry’s cousin that he grew up with. The boy already knew of the existence of the Wizarding World.”

Robards looked like he swallowed a lemon, and Harry succeeded in not smiling. Another win for Potter, and another loss for Robards. Harry just hoped this minor victory wouldn’t land him in more trouble.

“The case is closed, gentlemen. As far as the Ministry of Magic is concerned, you have discovered who killed Amelia Bones. We’ll send this off and make a release on Monday in the Evening Prophet.” Kingsley said. “Aurors Potter and Longbottom, you’ve had an exciting weekend. I don’t want you two here until Tuesday morning when I do a presser in the Atrium. Dismissed.”

Robards nodded, not exactly pleased to be out-commanded, but with both the Minister and the head of the DLME in his office, Robards was decidedly outranked.

Neville nodded, looking still too stunned to argue back. Harry nodded and murmured a goodbye, pushing Neville towards the door. They didn’t talk as they walked through the Auror Office back to their office.

When Harry closed the door, Neville turned around and stared at Harry.

“Merlin,” Neville whispered, pulling the realization of how close they were to death. He sagged against his desk.

“You overpowered Voldemort’s curse,” he whispered in astonishment.

Harry took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses. He hadn’t realized in the moment how close they were to death.

“Neville, I’m sorry, I should have stopped and requested backup the moment we entered,” apologized Harry.

The taller blond man stepped forward, wrapped an arm around Harry, and pulled him close in a loose hug. Harry could smell the herby salve Neville had smeared all over both their faces. Poor Dudley would just have to make due with petroleum jelly, and Harry's heart clenched in thinking of his cousin who had no idea how close he had been to death. Dudley had asked for Harry's contact information, and Harry had given it to him.

“Never apologize to me, Harry. I’m with you to the end. You saved us, that’s what matters.” Neville stressed. “You're amazing, and your magic saved us.”

Neville stood with Harry for a moment while Harry collected himself. Merlin, he could have led one of his best friends and his cousin to their deaths today, and no one would have been able to help them. And now, twice in a week, Harry had to deal with the shadows of Voldemort’s past.

Harry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and exhaled. He squeezed Neville and pulled him closer. Neville sighed and hugged back harder. After a few moments, Harry let go and nodded at Neville.

The taller man understood.

Slapping Harry on the shoulder, Neville pulled Harry back toward him. “Come on, Harry. Let’s get your arse home before you start leaking magic all over the office.” Neville teased. “Apparate us to Grimmauld, and I’ll help you build a bouquet for Ginny before Flooing out.”

Consequences be damned then. He didn't want to see anyone else in the office again anyway. Harry laughed and twisted the two of them away from under Whitehall to Islington.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> The style of this chapter was inspired by the Magnus Archives podcast. After last week's inclusion of Section 31 in the text, I was inspired to re-listen to some of the series, and so this chapter was born out of it.
> 
> The 1999 film _The Mummy_ inspired the way Voldemort entered the Bones Residence. The description of the Mummifying Curse that I had Kingsley explain is also inspired by this movie. If you've never seen this movie, I highly recommend watching it.


	9. The Heir of the House of Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally ends his long day surrounded by the people he loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated and Edited on 27/02/2021

Grimmauld Place sat silent for almost ten years after Walburga Black died, but now, almost twenty years and a war later, the House was alive once more. 

In the years of seeing the heir of her disappointment of a son grow into the man, she wondered how the boy would have become if she had listened to her father-in-law, what could have happened if she had pulled herself out of the depression that settled once the realisation had set in that she had lost both of her sons and her husband before she could die, when she was the one that was supposed to die first. 

Her blood traitor child’s heir and her other blood traitor niece and half-breed grandson had built a happy life in the home of her ancestors. According to Kreacher, the boy, well, she corrected herself, the man was growing more and more adept in his status as the next Head of the House of Black. 

Harry Potter, the only surviving line of her Father’s favorite cousin, was, in Kreacher’s insipid words, magic itself. 

Kreacher was always the most dramatic servant of the House. 

Walburga looked around the room so changed since she was alive, since she was moved from the entry hall to lord over the room that was once only hers.

Once upon a time, the women of the Black family would sit in this room and sew and embroider and sing and paint, and the Black family prospered. 

She had dreamed long ago of a daughter to sit by her, but all of those were given to Cygnus, the ungrateful bastard. Alphard’s disappointments rang louder than a bell, but then again, he was always so willing to try and pick up strays outside of the family until he made the mistake of helping her disappointment and threw it all away.

Apparently the new Head of the family did not want her anywhere near his precious little boy. 

Pish, the boy would need a firmer hand with his poor breeding, despite his strong family magic. 

The portrait cleared her painted throat and did what only a portrait could do, listen and speak of what was spoken to them in life. 

There was never enough time to whisper to her portrait, and then Dragonpox came, taking Orion; then so suddenly Regulus not even two months later, death by misadventure; then not even two years later Sirius never to be seen again, imprisoned in Azkaban; and she was alone and suddenly had all the time to pour her sadness and grief and hatred of self into her painting.

And the paint overflowed. 

Mother and Father, Cygnus, Lucretia, and Uncle Arcturus and Aunt Melania, they had all taken the Dragon Pox, and all of them had suffered and lived alongside her. And then, after the War ended, all hope was lost. Mother and Aunt Melania had been first to die, their hearts shattered first by Regulus’s death and then by Sirius’s imprisonment. 

Didn’t they see that she had suffered more? She had lost both sons and her Orion as well. She couldn't even leave the house and was overcome with the sea of desolation. 

It didn’t take much longer after Mother had passed that Walburga dreamed of the skies that haunted her nightmares, of the fall of man, and of the night Grindewald discovered her and Lucretia in Paris.

She had died once, before, once upon a time. 

She had seen Death, and he had told her it wasn’t time just yet. 

Grindlewald had seen her cursed, the madness of the skies. 

And so, Grimmauld Place, the bastion of her family’s magic was her home and prison all so that she could live. The Blacks had always dreamed of the stars, and Grindelwald took the sky from her. 

Where Orion’s warding and runic designs once hung on the basement, creating spells and fortresses which helped her stay alive, now her mousy niece had set up her own workshop, however plebeian. 

From the second story parlor room, Walburga Black could hear the childish shrieks of her great-great-grandnephew chasing after Kreacher. 

Blacks did not ask for forgiveness, but if she could, if she had spoken the words to her portrait before she died, she wondered what she would have said to the son she failed so poorly or the family she left behind. There were many regrets that she had, but she was grateful at the chance to continue to survive in memories of the last remaining Blacks. 

She dropped her embroidery on her lap as her son’s heir and his male friend Apparated in her old parlor. 

She sniffed haughtily, still after all these years of Harry Potter using a woman’s space just struck her as the epitome of ridiculousness. In her lifetime, she had this room all to herself and her female cousins and nieces, and Sirius and Regulus would never dare to bother her when she was in her parlor room.

The two men ignored her as they made their way out of the room. 

Wizards, she thought disparagingly to herself, were never worth the drama they created. She picked back up the embroidery and continued the Canis Major constellation pattern that would unravel again at the stroke of midnight for her to begin anew the next day. She had so many regrets.

Grimmauld Place was always unnerving for visitors. 

Harry had been told this many times by his friends and by his family. Neville once had explained to him that in magical homes it was a desired feature of the house. In older days, grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all lived together in the home. Women who married and their immediate children were always welcomed home, for sometimes, Neville delicately explained, family magic sought out a grandchild to carry true even if the child carried another family’s name. Grandchildren who defied the norms of magic were almost always powerful and talented beyond measure. 

Andromeda had nodded in agreement and spoke of her daughter, but at the time Harry had been told, a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, he had thought of Voldemort, of a young Tom Riddle with the power and might that the inbred Gaunt family had dreamed of for generations. 

And so, Grimmauld Place was the home of one Black daughter, a Black great-grandson who did not carry the name of the house but the talent of their magic, and the heir of the last son of the House of Black. The House had encircled them, protecting them in its own way. 

As such Neville didn’t say much as he followed Harry into the conservatory garden. He was a friend of the House, of the family, but he was a visitor, and Grimmauld Place would not let him forget it. 

The House knew him, respected him in turn, but the House had been so disrespected in the years after its last Mistress’s death and was slow to trust again in friends of the Master’s. Neville had drawn his wand alongside Harry, throwing his magic with the heir of the House of Black, and he had helped Harry rebuild the garden with Andromeda’s input. Alliances were built in the shared work of the House, but while Harry didn’t realise the full ramifications, Neville did and appreciated it. And so, the House honored the desires of the family to see a good mix of Muggle and magical plants growing bountiful. 

For a garden in the middle of London proper, it was of course expanded to almost obscene space. It was no Quidditch pitch, mind you, but it was large enough for a little boy like Teddy to run wild with all sorts of adventures. 

As Harry and Neville entered the garden through the conservatory, Harry stopped to survey the ground. Teddy was somewhere inside with Kreacher, but he wouldn’t interrupt them. Kreacher had that boy on a schedule, and it wasn’t Harry’s place to disrupt it when it worked so well. 

Harry looked over the large beds that dotted the yard full of a mix of Muggle and Magical flowers, the vegetable garden that laid mostly dormant this time of year, the creepy shed that housed the rhubarb, the play castle that Harry had built for Teddy, and of course, near the middle at the far edge the yard stood the dark naked branches of probably the oldest ginkgo tree that Harry or even Neville knew. 

Harry and Neville quickly made fast work at picking out plants that were just starting to bloom in the early spring. 

Harry was fairly lucky that in a magically maintained garden like his, flowers that usually bloomed in March or even April were now starting to flower. Although the smashing display of crocuses, daffodils, and irises that Andromeda grew for her butterflies were very pretty, they didn’t carry the meaning that Harry was wanting to convey, so he let Neville take charge in creating a perfect mix. 

After Neville helped Harry piece together a small bouquet out of purple hyacinth flowers found in his conservatory and watch as Harry conjured twelve red roses with a cast of an _Orchideous_ spell, Neville proclaimed the bouquet finished after slicing off some ivy off the brick wall of the back garden and tied it all together. 

“Thank you,” Harry said as the two men heard a yell from the front of the garden. 

Teddy was already running straight into Neville’s long legs, and the little boy’s hair turned from its usual blue to Neville’s sandy colored blonde hair. 

“NEVILLE!” Teddy cried as the man lifted the little boy up in the air. Teddy gasped in delight as he was lifted over Neville’s head. 

Neville and Harry laughed and greeted the boy. 

“What about me, Teddy?” Harry cried in mock hurt, and the little boy turned around in Neville’s arms, twisting in a way that showed all the certainty and trust in the world towards the adults in his life. 

“HARRY!” And with that the boy leaped from Neville’s arm, pushing off Neville’s stomach towards Harry.

Both men groaned as the little boy ran them ragged in the garden. Harry could hear Kreacher sigh in relief, and Harry took the message as Teddy having a full day. 

He picked Teddy up and let the boy hang off his shoulders and side like some stringy koala. The blond hair blurred into to black, and Teddy’s golden eyes morphed lazily into green. 

“What’d you do to your face?” Teddy asked as he reached for Harry’s glasses to look at a particularly nasty place near Harry’s temple.

Harry deflected the little hands and kissed Teddy’s forehead instead. The little boy wrinkled his nose at the smell of the salve.

“Neville and I were almost cursed today, but we’re okay,” he explained. 

Teddy gasped and hugged Harry. He turned his head to look at Neville who smiled reassuringly at him.

“Your godfather saved our butts today, Teddy-bear.” 

Teddy scrunched his nose up and leaned his head into Harry’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay. Does that mean we get popsicles?”

The two men laughed, and Harry held his godson close, savoring the warmth and weight of the little boy in his arms. Popsicles were, of course, the ultimate cure-all to all of life’s little hurts when one is four years old, even with the existence of magic. 

“Well, that’s up to your Grandma, Teddy. Tonight I’m going to go to the house in Holyhead and see Ginny.” Harry explained.

“Is that why you’re bringing flowers?” asked the little boy. “Take white ones, they’re my favorite! The butterflies like them best!”

“Well, these ones mean something special,” Neville explained as they made their way back inside the home. “It’s why I’m over helping Harry. Ginny deserves special flowers.” 

The little boy nodded like he understood, and he wiggled, crawling down Harry to be set down. Harry acquiesced and listened on as Teddy began telling him and Neville about his day. Poor Neville got an earful about dinosaurs from Teddy’s undivided attention. 

Harry gently placed the bouquet in the vase waiting for him on the kitchen counter. He smiled and thanked Kreacher who was already starting to prepare dinner. The old elf grunted and turned back to seasoning the chunks of white fish that lay on the butcher block. 

As Neville said his goodbyes and Flooed out from the main parlor’s fireplace, Teddy explained to Harry that Grandma was in the basement in her office, and so Harry and Teddy stomped over to the basement with Teddy telling Harry for the second time all about his day with Grandma and Kreacher.

Andromeda has taken over the old potions lab and storage space on the first floor of the basement to run one of her side businesses out of the home. Harry had let her have free reign because, honestly, it was pretty cool to wake up to hand sized and larger butterflies and moths flying around the house. 

Before Andromeda, Harry had no idea that most wizards and witches supplemented their income by growing or raising certain magical ingredients. Of course, it made sense when he thought about it because witches and wizards were strangely self-reliant. As there were never a lot of them, so those that could did. Andromeda seemed like she could do all she could and then some. 

For Andromeda, after she left the family to marry a Muggleborn, she decided that she would not be like her cousins and aunts who created magical art, but instead, she would work with creatures of all sorts. If she was going to lower herself to mud (as the last barb she ever heard from her mother went), then she might as well get a little dirty with hands on work. 

When she was pregnant with Nymphadora, she fell in love with a little muggle book that Ted’s mother had given her called _The Very Hungry Caterpillar._ She soon filled their little bookcase with more by the same author, and in doing so, sparked an idea. They didn’t have much space in the home, but insects were very small and always needed in potion making. And so, Andromeda began raising spiders, beetles, and butterflies of all shapes and sizes. It was an easy way to make fast galleons and sickles when her trust fund was suddenly gone. 

But with living in both worlds, there was a horrible moment of realisation that there was never enough money to go back and forth. Harry never realised it, but Gringotts only exchanged Muggle money one time a year per witch or wizard. And they never exchanged galleons into pounds, so Andromeda turned her witch abilities to help her family close to the Muggle world by creating an organizing and cleaning business that kept her and Ted afloat as Ted studied as a healer. After all, what Muggle wouldn’t want a house cleaner that seemed to work magic?

“Harry, I’m hungry,” Teddy complained, curling up next to his godfather who was cutting up the fruit and vegetable bits for the animals. The four year old leaned hard on Harry’s side, pressing his knees into Harry’s hip. 

“I know, buddy.” He soothed. “We just need to finish helping Grandma feed her animals, and then we’ll help Kreacher lay out the plates.”

Andromeda filled orders from the various small potion shops around the country and just smiled at her boys, instructing Teddy as he put the fruit and vegetable cups in all of the butterfly and caterpillar boxes while giving Harry the crickets and mealworms to give to the spiders and centipedes on his own. Teddy got to use the mister to spray plants, and Harry was given the harder job of making sure Teddy didn’t turn it into a water fight. 

After dinner and once Teddy was ready for bed, Harry said his goodbyes, kissing Teddy on top of his head and kissing Andromeda on the cheek. The older woman had handed him his bouquet of flowers and reminded Harry that Ginevra hadn’t sought him out on Valentine’s Day either. 

Harry sighed and replied that it wasn’t the point. 

“I know, darling,” said Andromeda, “but I see you day in and day out, and I know how late you’ve been working, reading. You read through the four books I found you, and I’ve seen you and Kreacher looking through the library. You’re exhausted.” She gently touched Harry’s check, avoiding one of his injured places. 

“I know, I just. What I’m doing is important.”

The lights flickered overhead, and Harry sighed. Another problem to look into. He hated working on the electrical wiring he and Dean had rigged in the home, but the oil was getting too much for Kreacher to manage. 

“And no one has said that it isn’t, Harry?” Andromeda replied confused. “Is this what’s got a bee in your bonnet, darling?”

Harry nodded, miserable. “It’s tied to something pretty Pureblood, and I just feel lost sometimes.”

“Pureblood of the Malfoy kind?” Andromeda asked. She smiled teasingly. 

Harry gave her a flat look. They both knew that he couldn’t talk very much about his case, but for Andromeda after living with a husband who honored a Healer’s vows and a daughter who was an Auror, she knew how and how much she could ask. 

“I’m reading about magic that I never took in Hogwarts and reading about history and customs that no one talks about anymore,” complained Harry. “Everything seems like it could be important to the case, but I’m worried that if I ask Gin, she’ll think it’s too… Pureblood or even dark. And if I ask Hermione, well...”

“And she’s unfortunately only had a Hogwarts’ education to fall back on,” Andromeda finished for him and made an unimpressed sound. “That family, I swear. You do realise that Arthur and Molly are Purebloods? Arthur himself is half Black. My Great Aunt Lucretia married Molly’s Uncle Ignatius. Asking questions among family isn’t going to upset them, especially not Molly, she loves you.”

Harry sighed. Maybe he was making a mountain out of a Mooncalf hill. 

“Andromeda, how would I begin to track magical fallout brought on by a blood offering?” He asked quietly. He had plans to meet up with one of the Vampires in the London Coterie soon, but with everything going on, it was hard to have a moment away to meet at night where some of the most prolific hunted.

The woman hummed, deep in thought. “I changed my mind, don’t ask Molly. Ask Bill, maybe even Arthur. That is more older Black family magic, but I don’t know if Cedella learned it. She was so removed from the main branch and a daughter. I left too young to learn. If you can trust my sister, she might know.”

Back to the drawing board, Harry supposed. 

He said his goodbye, and Andromeda reminded him that he’d best clear his night schedule soon to learn some family history. If he really wanted to learn, she would help him the best she could. 

Harry Disapparated away in his office and reappeared a whole countryside away moments later. The street was quiet and dark, and Harry scanned the area quickly before entering the paved front garden and frowning. Ginny had left his motorcycle out. 

It was cold tonight in Holyhead. The salt air filled his lungs as he breathed in. He knew that from the second floor terrace of the home that he’d be able to see the sea and the harbor. The light was on in one of the front rooms of his home, and Harry let himself in and walked up the landing to the first floor.

Ginny was reading through quidditch drills and lounging on the couch, packs of ice strapped to each of her shoulders and on one of her thighs. The wireless played quietly in the room, and Harry smiled at hearing Muggle rock jam low in the front room. 

Old Jones must have called another practice before next week’s season opener, Harry thought to himself as he watched his wife read. She was beautiful laying there in her own little world. Hair had been cropped short, something Gwenog Jones always demanded at the beginning of every season. She had seen too many women be pulled off their brooms by their literal pigtails and braids. 

“Hey, Gin,” Harry called, and Ginny sat up startled. She tossed the notebook on the table. 

“Hey yourself,” she said as she looked at Harry. “I see that it’s been a rough couple of days.” She said pointing at her cheek. Harry cupped his own where he could feel the heat of his raw skin. 

Harry nodded. “I could say the same about yours. Jones’ got twitchy about next week’s match? Puddlemere’s good, but they did lose three games the first month of last year’s season.” He teased, trying to tease a smile out of Ginny. 

She didn’t smile. “But then they won their last eight games before the season ended.” Ginny countered. She leaned back on the brown couch and patted the seat next to her. 

Harry kissed her gently, handing her the flowers. “Happy Valentine’s Day, I’m sorry about yesterday. I just, I don’t know, forgot about it. I spent the day with Teddy at a museum in London.” 

She smiled at Harry, and his gut unclenched. “He must have liked that. It was your only off day last week, right?” She laid the bouquet on the table and reached for his hands. 

“Yeah, I was given a new case. It’s research only right now, but it’s a lot. Today, Neville and I cracked the Bone’s cold case, so we’ll be finishing up the paper work on that next week.”

“Oh?” Ginny asked. Reaching for her wand, she summoned a butterbeer for her and Harry. It wizzed in from down the small hallway into the front room. “Who did it?” 

Harry’s magic popped the caps on both of them the moment his hit his hand. “Voldemort killed her,” he explained quietly. “It was, it was pretty intense.” 

His report did not do justice in explaining what his magic had told him. 

That Voldemort had hunted Amelia Bones in her own home like a snake stalked a wounded mouse. The fear and resignation that the woman carried, and the bright moment of realisation that she still even with her death had put a slight hold, at least for a while longer, on him seizing his ultimate prize. 

Harry couldn’t explain how he knew so truly, so it was omitted and would only be known in his nightmares. 

“You look like you’ve been _Scourgify’_ ed.” 

Harry winced. He pulled away from his memories and focused on his wife. He should have brought a Dreamless Sleep with him. Seeing Voldemort twice in a week had to be bad for his health. 

“I was blasted by a whirlwind of sand. I guess I’ve been buffed.” He tried to joke, but Ginny still looked concerned. She touched his hand gently, and they quietly held hands on the couch, Harry pulling comfort from her. 

Harry took a long drag from the butterbeer. Ginny leaned onto his shoulder, and Harry pressed a kiss into her short hair.

“How’s Neville?” She asked sleepily. Harry looked up at the time. It was almost nine in the evening. 

“He looks the same as me.” Harry almost winced in pain at the half-truth. His hand throbbed. 

Neville carried himself well, but Harry could tell he was rattled. Neville was extra-touchy when he or any of their friends were hurt. Hearing how close they were to a fast, almost inevitable death was an eye-opener to his partner. 

Harry cleared his throat. “We also,” he started to say, “we also ran into my cousin Dudley. He’s a muggle police officer now.” 

Ginny made an interested noise, but she didn’t ask how seeing him was. She had heard some of the stories. She wasn’t interested in Harry’s cruel cousin. 

“What’d you do yesterday?” Harry asked. He rolled the bottle back between his hands. 

Ginny laughed a sort of bitter laugh, and Harry winced slightly. But she still smiled at Harry.

“Slept. Mum came round to drop off food, and then Ron and Hermione came by for a bit.” 

Harry smiled hollowly back at her. Great, Harry thought to himself. Now the whole family knew that he had forgotten about Valentine’s Day.

“How are they?” He asked, as he leaned over her. Ginny leered teasingly at him and kissed him. 

“A little ticked at you, Ron about forgetting about me, and Hermione because she found out from Neville that you skipped the pub for a training session with Kingsley.”

Ah, so that’s what Neville told them. Harry’s hand tightened slightly, and he nodded. 

“Well, she isn’t exactly right.”

Honesty for honesty, Harry thought to himself. 

“Oh?” Ginny asked. 

“It’s the new case. Kingsley has asked me to do some heavy research into some old magic, but he doesn’t want Robards to know about it or that I’m on it.”

The Floo flared. Hermione walked out of the fire. She gasped at the sight of Harry and put her hand on her chest in relief. Well, there went his night alone with Ginny, he thought. 

_“Harry Potter!”_ cried Hermione angrily despite looking so relieved to be face to face with him. “I tried Grimmauld Place for four nights in a row, and Andromeda or Kreacher has said you were either not home or busy in your office!”

Harry blushed. Andromeda had told him a couple of days ago, but he was in the middle of research and didn’t want Hermione involved with anything Malfoy Manor related. He had pushed it off and forgot about it. Kreacher not telling him she had Floo-called didn’t surprise him. Kreacher simply didn’t like the witch, so why would he tell him Hermione had Floo-called. 

She turned back into the fire. _“Ron! He’s here!”_ She cried into the green flames. 

Harry stood and hugged Hermione in greeting. She fussed over his face, but Harry just smiled gently and assured her that he was okay. 

Hermione had really grown on her own as a woman. She wasn’t as tall as Ginny, but her hair had finally been tamed, falling into elegant curls rather than the bushy mess from their teenage years. Her pretty smile was stretched wide, and she reached out to hug her oldest friend again. She was always confident, but now she just exuded the fact that she was every bit of a witch and then some to those old purebloods in the DRCMC. She had just started making inquiries about transferring laterally into the DMLE after her first cause to help regulate better treatment for House Elves was being sidelined by old Pureblood legislation. If Gin was as feared as a chaser on the Holyhead Harpies, Hermione Granger-Weasley was a feared Ministry Official. 

As Ron stepped out of the fire, Harry was momentarily stuck with how big and tall his friend was in their small front room in the Holyhead Townhouse. Since his Hogwarts years, Ron had grown even taller, now an inch taller than Bill and had muscles that seemed to compete with Charlie. With his interesting scar patterns, he was always the talk of the pub whenever they would go crawl about in London. Of course, now that Ron was working full time over at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes with George, Harry saw his friends less since he and Ron weren’t assigned together any longer, but Ron was happier now. He slept through the night more. 

“Hey mate,” he said easily. “Been avoiding us—what in the bloody hell happened to your face?!” He exclaimed. 

Harry smiled. “Curse damaged,” he chirped. “The skin will heal by this time tomorrow.”

“Yeah no kidding. You look like the time Mum aimed a careless Scouring Charm at Dad when she was too busy ogling at who had won Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile.”

Ginny laughed and squinted at her husband. “Just add the soap bubbles coming out his ears!” She crowed, and Hermione had to stifle her giggle. 

Harry smiled, and he felt the tightness leave his chest even more. It was good to be around Ron and Hermione and Gin without everyone else. He felt a smidge of guilt thinking that, but he had to be selfish. He could think for his needs too. For a moment, he could imagine Anne sitting in the room and nodding encouragingly at him as he maneuvered through his own thoughts. 

“So about that new case?” Ginny asked, and Harry felt the tightness again, surging back. 

“A new case? You finished the Bones Murder?” Ron asked excitedly. He flopped onto the floor, sitting next to the open chair. Hermione sat happy, adjusting her skirt. Ron summoned them a couple of butterbeers from the icebox. 

Harry could tell the moment it registered to Hermione that Harry was avoiding telling them something. With his line of work, there was always something that he had to hold back, but Hermione always knew when he was trying to avoid divulging important information and somehow get it out of him. 

“How were you able to sustain curse damage like if you finished the Bones case?” She shrewdly asked him.

“Ah,” Harry’s voice caught. “There’s going to be a presser about it next week. I just have to finalize my report. Neville accidentally triggered a time delayed curse,” at this Hermione’s eyebrows raised into her fringe, “and my magic… overpowered a mummification curse before it could—“

“Before it could suck all the water out of your body?” Hermione said, her voice rising with every word. “What in the world, Harry? How? Magic doesn’t work like that!” She exclaimed.

“Prolly why he has to finalize the report,” speculated Ron, leaning back into Hermione, pinning her to the seat. He shot Harry a knowing look.

“So, this is just another point to add to the research,” Hermione murmured. She tapped her chin in thought. “When you mean overpowered—”

“Wait till you find out who killed her,” Ginny interrupted and took a long pull from her butterbeer.

His friends looked over, and Harry sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. This would be the fourth time tonight that he’d have to explain the cause. He was definitely going to have a nightmare about it.

“Voldemort killed her in her own office. He used wandless self-transfiguration to turn himself to sand and poured himself through the lock to her office.” 

Ron let out a low whistle. “He figured out to trigger the curse to target those in the Auror Office who would work against him,” He murmured, looking into the fire. “Damn. Neville was just starting to actually say the bastard’s name.” He murmured. “How’s he doing? Wait, he’s pretty shook, isn’t he?”

Harry nodded. Before he could explain, Hermione jumped in again, “Harry, when you mean overpowered—“

“I mean, I felt the magic and pushed back, and when it pushed back again, I shoved with my magic until it was pinned to the walls and ceiling, away from us. The sand had made like this storm in the hall, and it was like I, like I suffocated it.” Harry explained as quickly as possible. He touched his throat, remembering what it was like in the sandstorm of Voldemort’s Dark Magic. 

Hermione hummed, touching her lips gently as she thought over the explanation. “This is going into the research file, Harry.” Hermione quietly said. “Did anything else happen?”

“You won’t do research for me anymore, but you’ll do research on me.” He groused, swirling the bottle of his butterbeer, letting the remaining liquid swirl in small, fast circles. 

Ron laughed. “You should see the closet. It’s enchanted to the ceiling. No one is finding Hermione’s notes. They’ll have to go through her underwear drawer first!” He said laughing, and Hermione batted him away, telling him off. He laughed and went to hug Hermione, pulling her down for a kiss. 

“At least you can use your closet for whatever you want,” Ginny complained. “Kreacher never cares for my clothes. I have to keep all of my Quidditch gear and most of my clothes here because I’m sure he’d set them on fire.” 

Both Hermione and Harry frowned but for different reasons. Kreacher may wash the clothes because that was one of the elf’s favorite chores, but he and Andromeda brought it to him and put the clothes themselves. The old elf had his limits, but he definitely did not want any witch or wizard to think that he was an idle sort. 

Harry cleared his throat. He turned his head towards Hermione. “My magic is just always there now. I think I’m using Divination,” he said. “I’m sensing magic a lot more, and I,” Harry paused, letting out a deep breath of frustration, “I feel my own magic almost all the time.” 

At their stares, Harry continued. “I know how Bones died because I saw it and felt it. The Tracking Charm can only show what physically happened. I felt Voldemort’s elation in the hunt and Madam Bones’ fear and happiness when she refused Voldemort, she died happy knowing that she had bought Dumbledore more time.” 

“What?” Ron breathed. Ginny and Hermione sat still listening to Harry’s explanation, both trying to find some sort of sense. Ginny had taken Care of Magical Creature and Ancient Runes in school, so she never had to go through Trelawny’s drivel. 

“Madam Bones kept a file cabinet in her desk that had information about every witch and wizard that ever had been before the Wizengamot during her tenure, except she had removed my file from her cabinet,” explained Harry. “Voldemort was going to use the file to find out where I lived. That’s how he knew where I lived after Dumbledore died because he got through the Ministry’s protections. I knew that was the reason because Bones was so elated that she had gotten one up on Voldemort.”

The girls were silent. 

Ron let out a deep cackle of a laugh. “Oh Merlin,” He cried, holding his side. “This is the best news. Pay up, Hermione. _‘Divination is useless!’_ ” He said, pitching his voice higher to imitate his wife. 

Ginny sat forward. “Nothing about that sounds like Divination.”

Harry thought back to earlier this week, to Malfoy Manor, standing by the windows and realising his secret of his magic was becoming more than he could keep secret beyond Andromeda and Kingsley. Draco Malfoy had called his magic his greatest defender, and after today, his magic was the only thing keeping him alive. He owed it to his magic to begin crediting it for all it had done for him, time and time after again. 

“I’m using oneiromancy. I’m walking into my own dreams. These don’t always come at night.”

“Harry! You can’t be serious, if they test you—“ There was a small crash, and Hermione had dropped her butterbeer on the side table. She tried to quickly right it up, but Harry’s magic picked up the bottle and cleaned the table faster, banishing away the mess. 

“I’m not using salvia or any of the dream herbs, Hermione. It’s me.” It had always been him, he thought. 

Ron let out another low whistle, and Hermione hit his shoulder. “Is there, is there, I don’t know,” Hermione floundered. “Ron, you took two more years of Divination than me, is there something that could explain this?” 

Ginny leaned back into the couch. “Don’t always come at night? Harry Potter, you best explain that to me,” she demanded. 

Harry sighed as he stretched his beard. What more was there to explain? His magic was growing more and more powerful and now actively warned him. He honestly wished he could disappear for a bit to regroup. He’d been around people all day, and he was just so tired. 

But, he owed an explanation to Ginny and Ron and Hermione. There had been some dark times had by everyone in this room in the first years after the end of the war, of watching each other and counting bottles of Dreamless Sleep and Invigoration Draughts to cope with the day to day.

Harry felt his magic encircle his shoulders, and Hermione gasped, shoving Ron off her legs, and stood up. Harry looked down and sighed.

His stomach and lap were missing. 

He was partially invisible. 

“This is new,” Ron said, pushing himself up onto his knees. 

Both he and Hermione leaned in and began to look at Harry.

Hermione began to cast different revealing charms, and she tried the Summoning Charm. Nothing. The invisibility began to spread down Harry’s lap, covering the tops of his thighs. 

Hermione murmured, “It’s like the Cloak, but you’re not using it.” She studied the slowly creeping invisibility and poked Harry’s leg with her wand. 

The invisibility jumped forward, pulling his knee into nothingness, only the brown tweed of the couch showing. 

Pushing his glasses up, Harry sighed and rubbed his face. He was exhausted. 

“This is my magic,” Harry explained, and he pulled with it, feeling the tightness around his chest like a band around his heart. 

Suddenly, he filled back out, turning visible once more. 

And then the room exploded in green light, the color of Harry’s eyes, the color of the Floo, and the color of the Killing Curse. 

Hermione yelped and fell back, but not into Ron or onto the floor, Harry’s magic gently wrapped around her like a hammock, gently rocking her before lifting her up and setting her down on her feet. 

Ron’s arm lifted up into the air, and by his wrist, he rose, all six foot and more of him. His tanned skin paled, making his freckles stand out even more. “What in the—“

The coldness of Harry’s magic pushed Ginny forward, and she frowned looking at her knees and shoulders. The ice packs unraveled, and the kinesthetic bandages used floated up into the air before rolling back perfectly coiled and ready for the next use. 

“It’s not just levitating tea sets and making tea for everyone,” Harry quietly said. “It’s not just catching things that fall. It’s seeing what’s coming next, making leaps in my cases that no one can follow, protecting me from anything life throws at me. How do you think I survived solo against the Lestrange brothers?” He asked. 

Hermione was silent, still amazed. Ron and Ginny looked pale and drawn at the sudden use of magic in an unfamiliar way. 

“How do you think that in a little over a year, Neville and I have solved four cold cases? In a department that before the war solved one on its own every three or four years,” Harry continued. 

“It’s a part of you but not a part of your consciousness,” Hermione mumbled and looked down. “You’ve been doing it since Hogwarts. You always knew when something was wrong.”

She leaned forward and grabbed Harry’s hands. “You knew something was wrong. You performed a Patronus at thirteen! You survived the Triwizard Tournament! You, you—” She gasped. “It was never your logic, and it was never your luck. Your magic is your everything that you are. You’re attuned with your magic.” She smiled so brilliantly, and for once Harry prayed that Hermione was right.

Ginny let out a short laugh of disbelief. “No way! The insane Potter luck, that I believe, but Harry’s magic leading him through school? You couldn’t have had this ability in Hogwarts, the war wouldn’t have taken as long as it did.” 

The tightness in Harry’s chest clenched. 

Ginny looped an arm around Harry’s own. “I think you guys are overreacting. Harry’s just a powerful wizard, and maybe one day he’ll be just like Dumbledore was.” 

Harry swallowed. He hoped he would never be like Dumbledore. 

Ron let out a disbelieving snort of his own. 

“No way, Dumbledore was an old wizard. He could totally do it because he defeated Grindelwald, but most of those old wizards can’t do half of what Dumbledore could when he was half their age,” Ron explained carefully. “A lot of old wizards just leak magic like that, why do you think it was only old farts that monitored our O.W.L.s?” 

“Harry’s not old though,” came Hermione’s blunt response. “I think this is something more. His magic is imitating the Cloak.” She swallowed and looked up at Harry’s eyes. “What dreams are you having, Harry?” She carefully asked him, stressing her words.

“My dreams are not happy, Hermione. They haven’t been in a long time.”

They all stood silent in the room. Harry could tell that Hermione wanted to ask something more, to tease out a question that Anne had spent many a session on trying to coax out of him. 

“Stop. Stop.” Came a pleading tone. 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned at Ginny who had sat back on the couch. She looked dazed. 

“I can’t hear this before bed. Are you lot saying in the guest rooms?” She said to Ron and Hermione who nodded. It didn’t matter where they slept with a quick Floo back home or to work. 

Harry smiled gently at Ginny and kissed her head. He wrapped an arm around her, squeezing her against him. 

“I’m sorry, I just can’t talk about the War before bed,” explained Ginny. 

Ron and Hermione crowded in and hugged the younger two. Ron squeezed hardest, lifting the three of them off their toes. Ginny shrieked in delight, and Harry smiled, feeling lighter. 

“We’ll catch up in the morning, Harry.” Ron said, clapping Harry on the back. He picked up a laughing Hermione, swung her over his shoulder, and took the stairs by twos up to the bedrooms. 

Harry squeezed Ginny tighter against him. “How about we go upstairs too, Mrs. Potter,” he whispered, pitching his voice low. As much as he loved Ron and Hermione, he really wanted some alone time with his wife. 

She smiled and with a wave of her wand, cleaned up the butterbeers, transfiguring the four empty bottles into a vase for the flowers.

“I thought you’d never ask,” She whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> The Ginkgo tree is in the garden of Grimmauld Place is a headcanon that I've incorporated after reading a fanfic. I don't remember the name, but in the fic, Grimmauld Place had a huge ginkgo tree in the back garden. It was absolutely beautiful in description, and it's stuck with me since. If you know the name, please comment! 
> 
> The flowers do have meaning because I wanted to be that extra. It's all lovey-dovey flowers that Neville would know because he's our lovable plant nerd. 
> 
> _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ is my kids' favorite book. I could see the Tonks family going head over heels for Eric Carle as they have a Metamorphmagus daughter. When Tonks was two, Ted's mother gave her Carle's _The Mixed Up Chameleon_ , and she then saw it as a cautionary tale. This is now your headcannon.


	10. The Light in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry discovers more than he wants to in Holyhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING THIS CHAPTER: 
> 
> I have updated and editing the previous nine chapters. 
> 
> The two weeks that thought it would take me to finish editing the previous nine chapters and to complete chapter ten turned into almost a month. I somehow added 11,000 words to this fanfiction before I even uploaded chapter ten. I didn't go out to do that, but it's happened. I can't take it back now. 
> 
> If you would like a clearer picture of the plot, I would suggest you take the time and go back to at least the last chapter to refresh. 
> 
> Thank you all.

Harry woke with a scream biting at his throat, seeking release into the night. His t-shirt clung to his skin, and the sheets below him were soaked in his own sweat.

Sitting up and swinging his legs out from under the heavy blankets, Harry sat hunched over holding his head in his hands. He took a deep, shuddering breath as he raked his hands through his hair. He could still hear the steady steps and the shifting sand echoing about in his skull.

The dream had been too real.

Voldemort had just been too real, his mind repeated.

The last week’s events had flooded his dreams. With the memories of seeing Voldemort on the grounds of Malfoy Manor, in the Stone Circle, him naked and pale, glowing like honey and translucent from the Tracking Spell. Seeing him there, basking in his nakedness and power, ready to transmute the magic of earth to solidify his dominion over the worms called man.

The dream shifted with Voldemort walking slowly through the high ceiling hallway of the Bones residence, his pale, shoeless feet stepping slowly with such purpose on the wooden floor. Each step taking him closer and closer to Amelia Bones, the sand shifting around him, seeking, knowing, and hunting.

A baby’s wail pierced his dream, and Harry woke up gasping, drenched in his own sweat.

Harry had to blink and swallow back the bile rising up his throat.

He needed to clear his mind. He needed to leave this room. He pulled off his sweat slicked night shirt off, wiping off his neck and chest, and his magic grabbed the long sleeve shirt he wore last night, levitating it across the room to him. He pulled it on and sighed.

His chest was hurting. He needed to leave, now.

He looked over at the clock on the nightstand and almost groaned. It was ten minutes to four in the morning. Sunrise wouldn’t be for another three hours, but Harry couldn’t stay still for much longer in the dark.

Standing up, Harry made his way into the toilet to change into his trainers and cold weather joggers. Ginny was still asleep in the bed, and Harry didn’t want to wake her up this early. He was somewhat surprised she hadn’t woken up but grateful that he didn’t have to answer questions about his nightmares from her.

There was something to be said about being a part of the Auror Program that no one had mentioned to him before he sat in McGonagall’s old office all those years ago. Being an Auror was more than just having a good core O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. scores, it was also a physically demanding job. Kingsley had told him his first year to pick up his physicality because he had seen many Aurors die young or retire grossly disfigured due in part because they couldn’t outrun or outmaneuver danger.

The years of Quidditch and fighting for his literal life had given him an advantage that many in the Training Auror Program had to build on their own time, juggling it alongside field training, continuing education, and work.

Harry could run like his life depended on it; because for so many years, even before he started at Hogwarts, it had.

He dressed quickly and made his way outside.

A part of him knew he was vulnerable going out so early, so cold in the morning, but the vulnerability gave way to the sense of knowing that his magic was there, pumping alongside his blood, warming him.

The moon shone bright. It was cold, and as Harry patted himself down to make sure he had his wand, he marveled the brightness in the night’s sky. Harry could tell that tonight would be a full moon.

Locking up, he made his way down to the street and began to run.

Making his way down the street, he thought about the last week. Draco Malfoy, Malfoy Manor, Voldemort and Bellatrix, their literal child lost in the craze of war, most likely obliviated from Narcissa and Draco Malfoy’s minds. Harry wondered briefly if Lucius knew, but he stopped thinking about the man. Voldemort probably had had enough of the simpering arsewipe after the multiple failures he had caused to Voldemort’s goals.

Sucking in a breath, Harry made his way towards the harbor towards the old maritime museum. The cold sea air would feel even better if he could really see the shore.

His breath puffed little clouds of steam as he pushed his body further onward. He could see in the distance the ships rocking back and forth in the Irish Sea. The large white ferry heading to Dublin sat waiting for the first passengers in the morning.

It was just another sleepy morning in Holyhead.

All of the homes were dark, and the stillness of the city was only disturbed just briefly by the sea’s breeze.

His steps were loud, thumping hard on the concrete and cobblestone. His blood and magic rushed to his ears, and Harry still ran.

Harry ran from the blood that seeped onto the stones, from the sand burning his face, from the high pitched laugh of the Dark Lord in his nightmares, and from the baby’s wailing in the night.

His magic slicked down his back, pushing him harder forward.

There was a moment of euphoria that set in as Harry ran in the dark, closer now to the roads that overlooked the harbor. The only thing illuminating him were the lights of the street lamps above. A car puttered past him, making its way to the parking lot near the dock.

He let his thoughts slip and slide, one step ahead of the other. His breathing was strong and steady, and his lungs ached in away that seemed to make all the little problems he faces smaller, more manageable the further he ran.

Harry ran, and he thought.

Harry thought about Draco bloody Malfoy who he was going to see tomorrow after lunch. Harry had the books Andromeda had found packaged on his desk ready for the prat. Harry had found the books useless, but he was sure Malfoy would want to determine that on his own.

The ley lines were a bunch of seemingly picked points because they were ruins and rocks nearby old settlements, but he couldn’t find a link to any of the Wizarding history that he remembered from Hogwarts. He guessed it would be interesting if he didn’t know real magic. Dudley had thought it was cool when he was a kid.

He stopped at the little harborside bistro where sometimes Ginny and he ate lunch at if they wanted a nice meal and didn’t want to leave Holyhead. It was a little Muggle place, and the food was good. The lights were all off, and Harry could hear the winds whip past and the waves crash on the jetty nearby.

The Port of Holyhead had transformed slowly in the last thirty years, and the city had taken a beating once whaling had been made illegal. The good paying work for deck hands and whalers had dried up, and with the rise of the more industrialised ports in Liverpool and Lancashire, little Holyhead was used primarily for the ferry to and from Dublin.

He took a shuddering breath and looked to the pitch black horizon. Far in the distance, Harry could see the boats rocking, their lights blinking in the night.

His magic spiked down his spine, straightening him, pulling the exertion of his run from his limbs.

Harry blinked at the darkness. There was something coming.

A light floated towards him from out of the dark sea. It was a brightness in the dark, and it was coming towards him. His wand slipped into his hand.

He took a step back, then another; all the while keeping his eyes on the ball.

The stones on the beach shifted beneath his feet. He was going to blast whatever it was that was coming at him, CTV be damned.

Then, he felt it.

The joy, the peace, the happiness that he was here. The whispers of joy, he was here, and Harry stilled, and he felt a tendril of his own magic reach for the ball of light.

It was the same light he saw in the far field of Malfoy Manor, in the Stone Circle.

It floated towards him, and Harry stretched out a hand.

The ball moved just slightly away and twirled lazily one. Harry reached out again, and he could feel the warmth biting at his fingers. The ball moved away and then back, as if teasing him.

It touched his hand and then zoomed into the night toward the city.

Without even second guessing himself, Harry ran after it, running up the embankment away from the water, towards the main road.

The roads were blessedly empty as he made it through the city, running up Prince of Wales before turning onto Newry Street. His lungs burned as he ran past the little side street where his and Gin’s house was.

The minutes flew past him, and Harry realized that he was running through central Holyhead, past the little businesses on the high street. He passed by the hidden little street where most of the local Wizarding folks shopped. Harry breathed on, pushing himself to catch up.

All he could hear was the sound of his loud breathing and the slaps of his feet hitting the concrete below. The light was moving fast, and he felt his body detachedly push itself into an even faster, steadier run.

He had to know where it was leading him. What was it doing here in Holyhead of all places? Was it following him? Where was it taking him?

He shook his head, shaking his fringe away from his face. Sweat was pouring off of him and chilling him as he ran through the cold February night.

The streetlights became fewer and farther between as he ran out of the city into the little small part of town where the detached houses stood silent in the dark early morning.

He ran faster, trying to keep up with the growing ball of light. He felt the burn of his thighs as he started to run uphill slowly as he made his way farther from the sea and city.

Was he catching up to it? Could he? The light didn’t seem to want to be caught, only chased. Maybe it was leading him somewhere?

Harry’s thoughts cleared, and he looked around him and nearly stumbled.

He had run out of Holyhead and was now in farmland. It was dark all around him, and Harry felt the need to run harder now.

His magic ran down his spine again, something was watching him, and he felt his hair stand up in a chill despite the already present cold. A dog barked in the distance, and Harry felt his legs pump faster towards the light.

He swore to himself. He had his wand on him, but now, the only light was from the almost full moon and the ball of light that was leading him on into the dark.

His body was aching, and he realised he had been running for maybe twenty minutes now, if that. He was sore, but by Merlin, he had to know.

Harry watched as the light moved from the road and into an empty field.

Harry skidded to a stop at the little kissing gate, pausing to what he should do next. The air was silent. He pulled his wand from his holster. His magic was tucked up against him, and he felt his magic shift to settle onto his shoulders.

He had to know.

Illuminating his wand, he raised it to illuminate the darkness around him.

The glowing tip revealed a dark grey sign with white letters.

>   
>  PENRHOS FEILW  
>  STANDING STONES
> 
> These stones may have been set up  
>  in the early Bronze Age ( 2000 -  
>  1500 BC ) since burials of that  
>  period have occasionally been  
>  found in association with large  
>  standing stones such as these.

Harry walked forward, taking a trembling step. His legs felt a bit numb, and the grass was wet and freezing. He could feel the dampness soaking around the tops of his shoes and up his ankles.

He walked on into the dark field. The wind was gentle, and the grass swayed in the moonlight.

Walking alone in the dark, Harry realised that there was something large up ahead in the field.

There were two Standing Stones in the distance.

The jagged nature of the rocks surprised him. The ones at Malfoy Manor had been hewed to almost perfection. These two before him, the Penrhos Feilw, were weathered and damaged. It may have been missing the overhanging stone, but Harry was suddenly seized with the impression that the two stones were still a doorway, to where he did not know.

The light appeared from inside the space created by the stones. It rose from the ground slowly and twirled at Harry’s eye level. The stones were still about a metre taller. He took a step towards them.

His magic crawled up his back, digging into his skin and pulling at him to stop walking forward, and he stood still before the Standing Stones.

The dog in the distance barked again.

The light floated towards him. The same warmth and happiness he felt was there, but the light also carried a whisper of warning. Harry heard it all the same despite the lack of words: Young Wizard, always take care who answers in the dark.

His wand spun in his hand when he heard the tinkle of bells. The field was unnaturally quiet, the wind was not carrying the gentle whisper along the top of the grass. Harry heard a dog bark again, and the bells jingled again, this time from behind him.

Harry swore under his breath, and his eyes darted in the dark.

His mind spun, trying to remember an obscure fact that seemed just outside his memories. Something Seamus had told his Gryffindor roommates about his Grandmother’s childhood.

He felt the need to run seize upon him as he remembered where exactly he was.

He was in the middle of a field in Wales in the middle of the night hearing bells in the night. The thought punched him low in the stomach, and Harry could feel his heart beating faster.

He needed to leave now, right now.

The bells jingled again, and for a moment, Harry stepped forward, ready to run forward away from the bells behind him, but his magic seized his shoulders.

Not forward, not toward the gates, his magic whispered wordlessly to him. This wasn’t like the Stone Circle at Malfoy Manor where the Head of the Malfoy family stood beside him.

This wasn’t his land.

This wasn’t any man’s land, not for a very long time.

The ball of light crowded forward. Harry could tell it wasn’t the source of the sound, and as it shone brighter, it sent the shadows further away.

Something moved.

Harry’s breath caught at the sight of the shapes in the dark, leaping away.

He felt his eyes water behind his glasses. He was in big trouble, and the light was the only thing keeping whatever in the night away.

“You wanted me to see this place?” He whispered. His magic was reacting now, he could feel the bellowing of his own magic grow and even see the glowing green beginning to swirl around him.

The light bobbed. It paused and twirled slowly in place. The light flickered brightly at the shadows, making the creatures in the dark jump and crawl further back.

Harry swallowed thickly. His mind was screaming at him to leave now, but his magic bristled. Harry had a feeling that his magic would explode if he was attacked.

“This place is dangerous,” Harry said quietly.

The light bobbed again up and down. It agreed with him.

The dog barked again. This time it was closer.

Harry swallowed again. His body was tired, he was thirsty after his run, and he was weak. He had made himself a target.

He had stumbled in front of a Fae gate, in the middle of the night, in Wales. No one knew where he was.

“Do they know I mean no harm here?”

The light shook side to side.

Breathing in, Harry took a step back. The jumping shadows and bells and barking of dogs faded. The light moved forward towards him.

“Why am I here?”

Harry felt the light touch his face.

It was warm on the cold night, and for a moment, Harry saw Dumbledore smiling the night Harry first saw him, all those years ago welcoming him to Hogwarts the night he was Sorted into Gryffindor; then Voldemort standing in the clearing in the graveyard the night he was reborn, wrapped only in the black robe; then Draco Malfoy holding his wand shakily that night in the Astronomy Tower, as he failed to muster the courage to complete his mission; then himself, smiling in momentary relief as he held the Elder Wand, knowing that even as Hogwarts was smoldering ruin around him, at least Voldemort’s reign of terror was over.

He took a step back. The light swirled around him, lazily.

His magic streaked down his left arm, his palm burning in the hand not holding his wand aloft.

He swore, shaking out the injured hand. He looked up, and for a moment, Harry felt as though the light blink teasingly at him.

And then it flickered out.

The dog from where he first assumed the farm over set up in a barking howl, and Harry’s flesh went gooseflesh as he tried to adjust to the total darkness. Twenty, maybe a hundred of them jumped about in the dark, and Harry’s mind reached for some kind of reasoning to make sense of this world.

But it wasn’t a new moon? It was supposed to be the night before a full moon, but where was the moonlight?

Harry froze as the weight of the darkness fully descended upon him. His breath, caught in his lungs, tried to squeeze itself out. He looked wildly about in the pitch black dark.

There was no light.

He looked up.

There was no moon in the sky on the night before a full moon.

He could hear a dog growl, and Harry could feel his heart begin to beat faster as he realized what this really was.

It was a Hunt.

“Oh Merlin,” he swore, lifting his wand.

He was not going to die here tonight.

Raising his wand, his magic illuminated his sight, glowing green and ready, ready to explode the field.

A piercing caw from some type of corvid echoed around the field, and Harry winced as the sound in its loudness seemed to pierce his skull. He clutched his head in pain.

The caw came again, and whatever was in the night was closer and louder, filling the field.

He opened his eyes to see the shadows drawing back, and Harry could feel the winds around him cawing and fluttering around him as if a whole murder of crows took to flight around him.

He spun, away from the pair of Standing Stones in the field, and just as he was about to raise his wand and let out the brightest Patronus that he could muster, the world fell back into place.

Harry blinked as the night became visible once more. He could see the moonlight’s reflection on the grass, as the night opened up to the beauty of the open pasture land.

He fucking booked it out of the field and did not turn around.

Running, he quickly made it to the wooden kissing gate, pulled himself up with his arms, and swung his body over, rather than taking the seconds more to walk the single path. He turned a sharp left, heading back towards the city.

The hard slaps of his feet on the road comforted him. He was alive.

Harry could feel the exhaustion hitting him. The rollercoaster of emotions he had felt between elation and gnawing fear had pulled from him a tiredness he had not felt in years. He had to run. He had to get away from the gate.

He tripped about half a Quidditch pitch in length’s run down the road and stopped, panting. His knees hit a dirt road that met the main road. His feet felt like ice blocks, and he felt that his toes to his thighs were just stone, aching in pain. He wanted to puke.

His magic crawled up his limbs, warming them and comforting him. He was alive.

Why had the light shown him that? Was this going to be how the magic was going to always be? Would it just make him feel amazing before dropping him off the broom like that?

He could have been—no, no, nope, he was not going to think about what would have happened to him if he had fallen in the Hunt. The least of his problems would have been him being eaten.

“You’re a long way from home, Auror.”

Harry cursed a string of expletives as he spun around. If one of those little fuckers from Under the Hill were following him, he was about to light up their world, literally.

His wandtip blazed with a powerful nonverbal Lumos.

Lifting the wand, he peered at the face of a child that stood before him and stopped, momentarily relieved.

The young girl stood in the middle of the cross roads that the two drives made off the main paved road. She was a petite little girl, no more than twelve years of age. Her hair fell in honey-colored ringlets around her face, and her pale skin glistened in the moonlight. Despite the frigid February air, she was in a white nightdress, full of frills and strings and laces. If her heart still beat, she would dead from the cold, but she hadn’t been alive since probably before Dumbledore was born.

She smiled widely at his wand like she knew something he didn’t know.

Harry knew the Being that stood before him.

She was his first Auror contact with Beings not suitable for the mainstream Wizarding world. Her name was Claudia, though Harry had never found out her last name. Beings as old as Claudia always seemed to change their last names every thirty or forty years to blend in.

Harry had not meant to meet Claudia. He supposed that all good Wizards never meant to meet the Beings that the Ministry tried to corral in their little Division in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

Nevertheless, Harry had met Claudia the night she killed a Muggle man in front of him.

A year and a half ago, when Harry had just turned twenty year old and was barely even a full-fledged Auror, Harry was walking a beat one night up in Haringey, near Noell Park. There had been an incident early that month with the Accidental Magic Reverse Squad, and Harry wanted to drop in on the Muggleborn just to make sure. The Muggleborn witch had been fine, just overwhelmed in the moment, but on his way out of the area, Harry saw another young woman being hassled at the corner of the green.

The man was twice his own age chatting up a young teenager who had a head full of ringlet curls. It was late, and the girl looked lost and scared. Harry followed, not caring if she was a Muggle or not, he wasn’t about to let some grown man attack a child.

Harry went to confront the man, but by the time he had gotten to where they were once standing, the man and girl had retreated further into a more secluded area of the park.

When Harry had found them, Claudia had already killed the man. She had smiled at Harry when he appeared with his wand drawn.

Auror code should call for her arrest and detainment at the Ministry. She would then be arraigned and charged. With her Being status, it would have been a fast trial and sentencing.

Harry took one at the situation and realised what it was, and the service she was giving society. He re-holstered the wand to his side and gave the girl his Auror contact information.

When he left her that night, her smile was a full toothy grin.

Harry shakily stood.

He didn’t holster the wand. He wasn’t stupid.

“For an usually smart Wizard, you sure seem to do some silly things,” She whispered, and Harry heard her voice in his ears despite her being over ten feet away. “We felt the magic sing to us, and Father knew it was you.”

She looked up at the moon, and her eyes reflected a glowing red light.

Harry swallowed dryly. Seeing their eyes always sent a thrill of fear down his spine. He wasn’t sure if it was leftover trauma from surviving Voldemort or the deeper realization that he was standing before a predator.

“Clau-”

“Ah, ah,” she tutted, interrupting him. “No names here, not after what you opened in the field. You know who I am, and I know you, Auror. As if there could ever be another Wizard like you,” she teased.

“Why,” Harry panted, and he cleared his throat, “Why are you here?” He croaked, asking her plainly.

She smiled again, wider and fuller than before like she knew a little secret that Harry hadn’t quite figured out yet.

“My Father knows you are to seek his expertise, and I am to tell you to meet us at Highgate Cemetery, the night of the next New Moon. Under the Cedar of Lebanon, meet us alone as usual,” she explained in that enigmatic whisper.

Harry barely withheld a shudder. Merlin, Highgate always gave him the chills.

Highgate wasn’t too far from Grimmauld Place, only a couple of miles, but at least Harry knew he could easily apparate in the wooded cemetery or take the Tube nearby. Sneaking into Highgate was also easy, especially with his magic, but the problem was all was there.

Highgate was an old cemetery in London. Too ornate to be anything but creepy, he thought, and he was having to go into the creepiest, oldest part of the cemetery. At least he wasn’t going into the catacombs, but still, he’d rather take a deep stroll into the Forbidden Forest without his wand than visit Highgate at night, especially since he knew what was really there.

His magic always hummed like it was hypersensitive there. There was so much energy condensed in the area. With over a hundred and fifty thousand souls and fifty-thousand graves basically abandoned in the middle of London in a swirling, overgrown mess of flora and fauna, the magic he felt waiting under the ground at Highgate was dangerous.

He exhaled and nodded, but inside, he wanted to complain.

“Tell him, I’ll be there. What does he want in return?” He asked, remembering the niceties that one had to perform when dealing with Beings.

There was always an exchange. If one didn’t, well, no one ever wanted to owe anything to any Being.

She smiled, and her teeth grew longer. “You’re a smart Auror, one of my favorites. Look into the newest Being Division measure,” she imparted.

She paused, tilting her head to look up at Harry in a way that he knew she used to hunt Muggles with. “We aren’t humans, not anymore. Yet you’re the only one that seems to remember that,” Claudia whispered.

Harry paused. Hermione hadn’t said anything about any new legislation, but then again, Hermione was focused on her own childhood goals for House Elf reform. Claudia’s problem was a bit more ancient in the conflict between man and monster.

“Blood?”

It was always about Blood in the magical world.

Claudia nodded, her curls falling into her face. “Auror, find us food,” she whispered in the night, “or we’ll start taking the Satanists who sneak into our lairs to fill our bellies,” she teased.

With that being said, Claudia exploded in a wisp of shadows and darkness and was gone from his presence.

Or at least, Harry thought Claudia was teasing. One could never be sure with Vampires after all.

Harry’s magic rolled across his shoulders, and he took a deep breath as he felt steadier. He straightened up. His body ached, and he didn’t think he could focus long enough right now to Apparate back.

He hadn’t died tonight, and he’d be damned if he was going on another run anytime soon.

Morning was coming, and he needed to walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Easter Eggs:
> 
> I may have spent too many hours on Google Maps and on Wikipedia for this chapter, but I don't really care.
> 
> The Hunt that Harry experienced is taken from Welsh and Irish folklore. Harry still calls them the Fae because he doesn't know that humans are not supposed to call them Fae. You'll notice that this is a term that many English wizards think is okay to say, but it's not.
> 
> Highgate Cemetery was established in 1839 and is one of the "Magnificent Seven" private cemeteries established in London during the eighteenth century. It has some absolutely beautiful architecture and has been in featured in several films and television shows throughout the decades, one of which being the _Crimes of Grindlewald._ In the 1970s, a media storm set in over paranormal activities in the cemetery. The biggest story of the time was the infamous Highgate Vampire. 
> 
> Also, it was upon editing this chapter that I realized that I accidentally modeled and named Claudia after the character in _Interview with the Vampire,_ but I adapted Harry's first interaction with her is based off of a moment in the mockumentary _What We Do in the Shadows._ If you have never seen _WWDitS_ either film or TV show, you have to check it out. I was laughing the entire time. 
> 
> Finally, you may have noticed that I have added new tags to this story. I had some serious soul searching and planning out of the next few months of this fanfiction, and I've decided to make this story clearer in the tag
> 
> Even though I have always known that this is a slow burn fanfiction based on my writing style, I could never justify myself to tag ships that I knew were coming before they actually showed up. And then, I started looking at other slow burn fics and talking to some of my friends and realised that I was excluding people that would one day find my fic and could enjoy it sooner. 
> 
> I have chosen to go ahead and tag the one main ship. I will warn you all now that it will not happen for a long time. And seeing not even a week in the story has gone by and I've written 55k words, it's going to be a long time. We need to delve into that angst and struggle a bit more.


End file.
